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NORTH DAKOTA EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION 




REPORT 



OF THE 



COMMITTEE OF SEVEN 



ON 



Adjustment of Educational Work in North 

Dakota with Reference to the 

Needs of the Times 



THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 
DECEMBER, 1909 



PUBLISHED BY THE ASSOCIATION 






n. nr n 



■iia 






Report of the Committee of Seven 

ON 

Adjustment of Educational Work in North Dakota 

with Reference to the Needs 

of the Times 



THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 



To the North Dakota Educational Association: 

The undersigned Committee has the honor to submit the fol- 
lowing report on the Adjustment of Elementary School Work to 
the needs of the children of North Dakota: 

C. C. Schmidt, Chairman, 
W. M. Kern, 

D. E. WiLLARD, 

The Committee. ■{ T. A. Hillyer, 
W. A. Godward, 
B. A. Wallace, 
P. G. Knowlton. 

HISTORICAL STATEMENT. 

At a joint session of the Departments of Secondary and of 
Higher and Professional Education of the N. D. E. A. held in 
Grand Forks, Jan. 3rd, 1908, a motion was carried to appoint a 
committee of seven "to formulate a plan of adjustment of educa- 
tional work in this state, and make a report of progress at the next 
meeting of the N. D. E. A. and make a final report as soon as pos- 
sible." The Committee appointed consisted of Prof. C. C. Schmidt, 
State University, Chairman ; State Supt. W. L. Stockwell, Bismarck ; 
Prof. D. E. Willard, Agricultural College ; Pres. Thos. A. Hillyer, 
State Normal School, Mayville ; Supt. W. A. Godward, Devils Lake ; 
Prof. P. G. Knowlton, Fargo College ; County Supt. B. A. Wallace, 
Hillsboro. 



North Dakota Educational Association 



In accordance with its instructions this committee made a pre- 
liminary report in October, 1908, and the questions it raised were 
made the basis of part of the discussions of the holiday meeting of 
the State Association at Valley City. The Committee wishes to. ex- 
press its appreciation of these excellent discussions, and its indebted- 
ness for many suggestions thus received for this year's work. 

One of the resolutions adopted at this meeting made the Com- 
mittee of Seven a committee of the State Association, and instructed 
it to emphasize for the coming year the problem of the elementary 
schools, with a view to definite recommendations in this line at least, 
at the next association. Before the beginning of the work on this 
topic, however, the Committee received a letter from State Super- 
intendent Stockwell stating that the pressure of other duties would 
prevent his devoting the time to the Committee's work that he would 
wish to if a member, and offering his resignation. Accordingly, the 
Committee accepted his resignation, and asked Pres. Wm. M. Kern 
of the Normal-Industrial School to take the place thus made vacant. 
This Pres. Kern consented to do. 

The Committee has had five meetings of a full day each ; nvimer- 
ous letters have been interchanged between the individual members, 
and each has devoted many hours to the formulation of the particu- 
lar part assigned to him. But we realize the incompleteness of our 
work and the many important things yet to be done. We should 
especially have liked to include some thoughts on the vexed problem 
of the monthly examinations, the equipment of the school, and the 
school as a social center and a factor in rural improvement. We 
hope, however, that this contribution may be of some slight service 
in advancing the cause of education in North Dakota. 

AUTHORSHIP. 

The various parts of the report have been discussed in commit- 
tee so that they express its views in regard to their chief propositions 
and recommendations. The organization, the details, and the word- 
ing are of course the work of individual writers. Thinking that 
possibly some readers would be interested in knowing who these 
authors are, we give the names below : 

Introduction to Educational Aims — Prof. Schmidt. 

Physical Education — Pres. Kern. 

Vocational Education — Prof. Schmidt. 

Culture and Discipline — Snpt. Godward. 

Civic and Moral Education— Fr^'.y. Hillyer. 

Religion in the Elementary School — Prof. Knowlton. 

Introduction to Course "of Study Recommendations — Supt. 
Wallace. 

The Course in Arithmetic — Prof. Schmidt. 

The Course in Reading — Prof. Knotvlton. 



Adjustment of Educational Work 5 

The Course in Language — Supt. Wallace. 

The Course in History — Pres. Hillyer. 

Social Studies other than History — Contributed by Prof. Gil- 
lette. 

The Course in Geography, Nature Study and Agriculture — 
Supt. Godward. 

Manual Training and Domestic Science in the Elementary 
School — Pres. Kern. 

Preparation of Teachers — Pres. Hillyer. 

Improvement of Teachers already in the Service — Pres. Kern. 

Supervision — Supt. Wallace. 

I. EDUCATIONAL AIMS 
INTRODUCTION. 

It seems that no discussion of educational adjustment can be 
carried on without giving consideration to the true and proper end 
of education, and thus our Committee, although it took for its task 
the course of study for elementary schools, felt obliged to give much 
attention to educational theory. Ordinarily courses of study and 
educational practices are copied from others who in turn have bor- 
rowed them from some one else. But in such a task as the present 
one tradition or custom cannot be taken as a guide. The Committee 
has considered what should be the aims of education, and then has 
tried to determine the content and form of the curriculum by means 
of which those ends might be reached. 

The Committee holds the belief that most of the aims of educa- 
tion that have been exploited by the older educational theorists are 
ultra-individualistic and take too little account of the needs, interests, 
and obligations of man as a member of society. The Committee be- 
lieves that the more recent phrase, "the development of the socially 
efficient individual" is the most satisfactory statement of the domin- 
ant aim of education, and to realize that aim man's physical, voca- 
tional, cultural, civic and moral, and religious interests are suffici- 
ently important to demand distinct recognition. These terms are 
here used in the popular sense and are not meant to be mutually 
exclusive. The articles which follow briefly discuss the nature, rela- 
tive value, importance and bearing of each of these great factors in 
the aim of education. These articles were written by the members 
named elsewhere and were then discussed and revised so as to ex- 
press the views of the whole committee. By way of introduction 
we desire here to call attention to a few of their salient points. 

The Physical Well-being. Here the greatest need is to remove 
the emphasis from theory and place it upon practice. The state laws 
have rigidty required instruction in physiology and hygiene for many 
years, and teachers have been compelled to explain the principles of 
lighting, heating, ventilating, and cleanliness, while the pupils listen- 



North Dakota Educational Association 



ing- to this instruction are housed in buildings that violate every one 
of these same principles. The precepts of the teachers are thus 
pretty effectually nullified by the example of the school authorities; 
and, besides, the pupil suffers the result of bad air, poor light, filthy 
outhouses, etc. Far more good would be accomplished by reversing 
the situation : providing proper sanitary conditions and omitting the 
instruction. But, of course, nobody wants to omit the instruction. 
There is only one sensible course open : improve conditions and bring 
them into harmony with the principles that we are already required 
to teach. 

Tlie Vocational Aim. The agitation for a more practical edu- 
cation is as wide as the country and has been carried on for several 
years by all bodies of educators from the National Educational As- 
sociation down. It should be noticed that some adjustments in har- 
mony with the demands are being made in spots in many parts of 
the country, and it seems safe to predict that sooner or later some 
reform in this direction will be accomplished universally. The ques- 
tion with North Dakota educators should no longer be, Shall our 
schools give more vocational education? but, What type of voca- 
tional education is it feasible for us to offer, and how can we over- 
come the numerous difficulties and problems connected therewith? 

The Committee does not share the fear which is sometimes ex- 
pressed that the movement for a more practical education may go 
too far. In theory, of course, all our school work might be made a 
very narrow training in the barest routine or technique of certain 
vocations and the adoption of such a program this Committee would 
deplore. But the practical school administrator knows too well that 
the obstacles to the introduction of even a modest amount of voca- 
tional training for elementary and high school pupils are so great 
as to be almost insurmountable. And first of all there is the well- 
known conservatism of the educational public which holds the cur- 
riculum to traditional lines with such tenacity that it is usually many 
years behind the actual needs of the times. We cannot conceive how 
this conservatism would ever allow a general educational reform to 
go too far. Then there are the practical difficulties to be overcome : 
securing teachers for these newer lines, and providing the necessary 
room and equipment. All of this requires much time and money, 
for it should be recognized that all kinds of vocational or practical 
education are of necessity more expensive than the ordinary type of 
school work. 

We are not in favor of vocational training solely because it 
ought to produce greater vocational efficiency, but because we be- 
lieve it is one of the best means of training the mind. It is one of 
the best means because the learner here studies the things that are 
found in his environment, that come within his experience, and by 
which he expects to live. 

Formal Discipline. The Committee believes that mental disci- 
pline is of highest importance as a factor in school work, but that 



Adjustment of Educational Work 



there are several current conceptions regarding the nature of this 
discipline which present-day educational psychology does not sustain. 
(See Prof. A. P. Mollis, "The Doctrine of Formal Discipline.") 
According to one of these conceptions, power which results from ex- 
ercise upon one kind of mental task is usable in all other kinds of 
mental effort. We believe that this power is transferable only in so 
far as the new problem has elements in common with the problem 
upon which the power was developed. Another notion maintains that 
certain school subjects have a practical monopoly of the efficacy for 
discipline, and that other studies are comparatively valueless for that 
purpose. Some people have even gone so far as to maintain that the 
disciplinary value of a subject is inversely proportional to its utility 
value. The Committee believes that each study in the school course, 
or now proposed for the school course, is capable of yielding a disci- 
pline more or less peculiar to itself ; that aside from this the inherent 
disciplinary value of a subject is independent of its utility value ; but 
that many pupils are more liable to pursue the "practical" subjects 
with the necessary earnestness to afford good discipline than in case 
of those that appear "useless" to them. 

The older notions concerning mental discipline have often been 
advanced effectivel}^ in defending the retention in the curriculum 
of subjects or topics which for other reasons might have been elim- 
inated. Now, it seems to the Committee that while the power that 
results from discipline is of utmost value it nevertheless occupies 
the position of a "by-product," and we therefore recom.mend that no 
subject or topic should be placed in the course of study or retained 
there solely, or even chiefly, on the plea that it is "good for disci- 
pline." 

Culture. Perhaps no other term in the vocabulary of educa- 
tional literature is used with such looseness of meaning as the word 
culture, and we believe that man\^ a false educational policy is pur- 
sued under the vague notion that somehow it is necessary for "cult- 
ure." Let it be noted that culture is a composite made up of all the 
acquired qualities and attitudes of mind and body, and that the 
qualities and attitudes desired can only be cultivated or developed by 
discriminating exercise. 

Moreover, men's concept of an ideal culture varies with the 
particular social group that passes judgment upon it, and our own 
ideal should not be ^borrowed from other races and other times; for, 
as. President Eliot says in the New Definition of the Cultivated Man, 
"The cultivated man of today is, or ought to be, a distinctly different 
creature from the cultivated man of a century ago." It therefore 
behooves the thoughtful educator to remember that while his ideal 
may have an ancient and honorable lineage it may not necessarily 
be the best that can be bestowed upon the next generation, for, "The 
educational readjustment of today is reaching out for newer types 
of culture." (Prof. A. D. Weeks, — "General Culture and Culture 



North Dakota Educational Association 



Subjects.") Among the desirable qualities or attitudes that should 
be cultivated are, — physical health and grace, intellectual interest 
in all knowledge, love of truth and righteousness, broad S}Tnpathy, 
refinement of the emotional and esthetic nature, industry, morality 
and religion. 

It will be seen that culture includes a good part of what is said 
under other educational aims in this article. It is probable that even 
the limits here imposed upon the term are unwarranted by the usage 
of the best authorities, and that the only scientific definition which 
is consistent is the one used by Superintendent Godward in his dis- 
cussion which follows. He makes culture embrace everything that 
results from cultivation, including knowledge, power and skill, — 
all the fruits of education. The ideal culture then is the composite 
of all such qualities, attitudes, tendencies, knowledge, power, skill, 
etc., as are desirable. Culture in that sense, no one will deny, com- 
prehends the whole end of education. 

The Moral and Civic Aim. The work in this category should 
be broadened so as to embrace a more comprehensive study of man's 
social relations, with the emphasis laid upon his immediate social 
environment. There should be more systematic instruction as to 
the interdependence of all the members of one social group and as 
between one group and another, and from this relation the genesis 
of moral- and civil laws should be traced. Our instruction in civil 
government is now too exclusively a study of the machinery of gov- 
ernment without any attempt to show the necessity or wisdom of 
such provisions as we find. In the elementary school period at least, 
it is more important to cultivate the right attitude toward law by 
showing its moral basis than that children should commit to memory 
a great multiplicity of statutory or constitutional provisions for dis- 
trict, city, county, state and nation. 

Religion. A reverential attitude toward sacred things should 
be shown by the teacher, and inculcated in the pupil. Literature and 
science and other subjects in the regular school routine furnish ex- 
cellent texts for this purpose. But formal instruction in religion in 
the public schools the Committee thinks would be inconsistent with 
the spirit of American institutions. 

THE PHYSICAL WELL-BEING OF THE CHILD; SANI- 
TARY CONDITIONS OF THE SCHOOL; PHYSICAL 
TRAINING; INSTRUCTION IN HYGIENE. 

The high pressure and keen competition of modern life determ- 
ine the value of bodily endurance. Other things equal, the "good 
animal" wins. A robust physique is desirable for both boys and 
girls. Mena sana in corporc sano comprehends the sum of all edu- 
cational wisdom. 



Adjustment of Educational Work 



I. Under the physical well-being of the child must be included : 

(i) Improved methods of heating, lighting and ventilating. 

(2) Proper wardrobe facilities. 

(3) Adjustable school furniture. 

(4) Proper seating with reference to seeing and hearing. 

(5) Playgrounds that give opportunity for free and unre- 
strained exercise. No child can learn well or grow mentally who 
is in bodily discomfort. 

II. Sanitary conditions of the school: 

(i) Unsanitary school conditions are found in both country 
and city ; chiefly in the country and small towns. 

(2) Such conditions may be attributed to poorly constructed 
buildings ; unsuitable furniture which cramps and distorts the grow- 
ing body ; heating systems which result in an atmosphere alternately 
too hot and too cold ; impure and poisonous air due to the lack of 
ventilation ; poor light which impairs sight ; dirty floors, walls and 
desks, due to cheap and inefficient janitor service ; impure drinking 
water and lack of suitable lavatory facilities resulting in the spread 
of contagion ; filthy outhouses which are a source of physical, mental 
and moral defilement. 

III. Physical Training: 

(a) Because of the sedentary nature of school life three gen- 
eral ill results are likely to follow : 

(i) Because of the lack of muscular activity the nutritive pro- 
cesses — digestion, circulation and respiration — are liable to become 
weakened and deranged. 

(2) Owing to the weakened and deranged nutritive processes 
and owing to long detention in a relaxed sitting posture, correct 
bodily posture including erect carriage and proper chest and shoulder 
development, is lost in a large number of cases. Owing to the fact 
that the school period is the growing period habits of posture and 
carriage tend to cast the structure into permanent form. 

(3) Because of weakened nutritive processes and because of 
the suppression of the child's spontaneous desire for muscular ac- 
tivity, the mental development which results so largely from physi- 
cal control is impaired. 

(b) Neuro-muscular expression has become a prominent feat- 
ure in many branches of education as manual and industrial training 
bear evidence. The recognition of the necessity for* motor education 
has become universal. When the instinct for activity is suppressed 
the motor mechanism is weakened and the will enfeebled at the very 
time when it should be forming habits for hfe. 

(c) Physical exercises are imperative to overcome the ill effects 
named above, to stimulate the nutritive functions, to correct bodily 
posture and to train the mental powers, especially the will. 

(d) The forms of exercise should have a nutritive, postural 
and psychological effect. 



10 North Dakota Educational Association 

(e) Out-of-door sports, plays and games, contribute vastly 
towards counteracting the above evils ; they are the "divinely ap- 
pointed" means to physical development. Recess should be restored 
to its original position. 

(f) If possible a fully equipped gymnasium should be connected 
with every school. Light gymnastics, however, can never become 
a substitute for out-of-door plays and sports. 

IV. Instruction in Hygiene: 

Man, being subject to the same organic laws as the lower or- 
ders, should share with them in the wisdom devoted to physical de- 
velopment. His body is designed as the "temple of the living God." 
Perfect health may be maintained through observing God's health 
laws. These laws are of the utmost importance and are as divine 
as any others God has ordained for man's welfare. Sane mission- 
aries now begin with teaching God's laws of health. Modern be- 
nevolence goes out in trying first to improve man physically. Your 
committee agrees. — 

(i) That physiology, as commonly taught, concerns itself too 
exclusively with the effects' of stimulants and narcotics often set 
forth in language that repels many of the most thoughtful children 
instead of convincing them. 

(2) That the obvious hygenic laws that relate to clothing, 
proper bathing, eating, wholesome food and drink, and the necessary 
bodily functions should be emphasized. 

(3) That the teacher, principal or superintendent, is to be 
judged, in part, by the hygenic, sanitary and consequent moral sur- 
roundings observed upon th^ school premises of which he is master. 

RECOMMENDATIONS : 

(i) The state should provide school districts, free of charge, 
with printed specifications for the construction, erection and equip- 
ment, of modern school houses, and then require that all new school 
houses come up to the standard thus set. 

(2) If possible, the law should be so amended as to put a 
premium, in the form of a grant, upon the erection and maintenance 
of model rural and village school houses with effective sanitary, 
physical and hygenic provisions. 

(3) School buildings, which are conspicuously below a reason- 
able standard in regard to heating, ventilating, lighting and cleanli- 
ness should be inspected by competent experts ; and if condemned by 
the same the state should require proper improvements to be made. 

VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. 

By the term vocational education we mean that part of a system 
of education which takes cognizance of the calling upon which the 
learner is liable to enter in the future, and makes some provision 



Adjustment of Educational Work II 

for it. The plan adopted in making this provision may have in view 
a narrow Hne of training in the technique of one specific calling to 
the exclusion of all other interests as is illustrated in case of the trade 
school or in the usual type of the private business college ; or, on the 
other hand, it may provide a broad curriculum in which the training 
in the technique of the vocation in view forms but a part of the 
entire work of the pupil. For example, in the commercial high 
schools or technical high schools found in our larger cities, the 
training which distinctively prepares for a business life in the one 
case or for an industrial occupation in the other case, occupies no 
more than one-fourth to one-half of the student's time, the rest of 
the time being devoted to the acquisition of a broader basis of schol- 
arship in related fields, to general preparation for intelligent citizen- 
ship and to realizing other aims of education. Thus far industrial 
schools of the secondary school grade are very uncommon in this 
country, and in this state the time does not seem to be ripe for their 
establishment as a regular part of our local school systems. Diversi- 
fied industry is the rule in all North Dakota communities, and it is 
desirable that this diversification may continue to prevail. A difdcult 
problem would therefore arise in adapting highly specialized schools 
to local conditions. But a more general type of vocational educa- 
tion has developed in a variety of forms. In this category belong 
the manual training, domestic arts and commercial and agricultural 
subjects of our high schools. The work in these same lines in the 
elementary schools is even less specialized, but all these branches 
give a general ground work for the vocations of the masses of our 
people, and they possess the further merit that they will function 
efficiently as disciplinary and cultural subjects for those pupils who 
may continue their education and eventually engage in callings other 
than at first contemplated. 

Vocational education may be given in schools avowedly organ- 
ized for the purpose of training for some specific calling as in the 
case of the trade school, business college, normal school, law school, 
medical college, engineering college, and theological seminary ; or 
it may be given in the ordinary public schools by offering as a part 
of the program commercial subjects for business men, manual train- 
ing for the manual industries, Latin for the learned professions, 
pedagogy for teachers, domestic science for housemakers, etc. The 
school may make full provision for completing the student's techni- 
cal training so that when he leaves it he is prepared to enter upon 
the duties of his calling as is done in the vocational schools just 
mentioned, or it may merely lay a general foundation such as good 
courses in manual training give for the manual industries, as school 
courses in agriculture give for farming, or the traditional college, 
preparatory curriculum for subsequent courses for the learned pro- 
fessions. 

The main lines of vocational education that we have in mind 
may be classified as, (i) professional, (2) commercial, (3) Indus- 



12 North Dakota Educational Association 

trial, including agricultural, and (4) the household arts or domestic 
education. Those divisions, of course, are not rigid or mutually 
exclusive. 

Nearly all education above the elementary has a distinct voca- 
tional bent. ''The subjects taught by the schools, ostensibly cultural, 
have often assumed vocational characteristics. Thus, reading, writ- 
ing, arithmetic, geography and music, may be made to so deliber- 
ately minister to self-support as to become truly vocational subjects; 
and similarly, drawing, manual training and science instruction may 
have content and method determined by practical considerations so 
as to be properly defined as vocational. Beyond these come those 
forms of teaching, as in the commercial and trades subjects in which 
every step is regulated by the necessities of the calling." (Button 
and Snedden, Administration of Public Education in the United 
States.) The curriculum of the old American academy was avow- 
edly designed to lay a proper foundation for the learned professions 
for which the students were aiming; and, though the traditional 
curriculum of the academy has been modified somewhat in the mod- 
ern high school and its vocational aim is now usually repudiated, it 
still remains true that every high school in North Dakota continues 
to lay the necessary foundation for the learned professions, while 
but few offer work that is equally fundamental for the business man, 
the mechanic, or the farmer. 

No hard and fast distinction can be drawn between vocational 
and none-vocational subjects. The great difference between them 
is that certain studies have preparation for self-support as their im- 
mediate aim ; while others merely serve as a suitable foundation to 
be built upon, generally in a long process extending over many 
years, and if this process is not completed then these courses usually 
fail to function efficiently for vocational purposes. So it is with 
the so-called cultural subjects. Not one of them is so exclusively 
"cultural'' that it may not be used for earning a livelyhood ; even the 
fine arts are not exempt from this. A study that is "cultural" for 
one pvipil may be "vocational" for another. 

The Committee are in favor of the present movement in this 
state for more ample provision in our school system for vocational 
education, but we do not restrict the term vocational education to a 
narrow line of training in the technique of one specific calling, as 
has been done by some writers. In fact we should strive to make 
the vocational training of our citizens as broad as their time will 
permit, while not neglecting the acquisition of thorough skill. 
We believe in such correlation of the vocational and the various 
other aims of education as is calculated to meet the demands of 
society, "That each adult, within the limits of his capacity, shall be 
physically well, shall be vocationally capable, shall have civic and 
moral insight and motive, and shall keep alive some cultural and 
esthetic interests." (Button and Snedden.) 



Adjustment of Educational Work 13 

We furthermore feel, that vocational education should be pro- 
vided at various stages of advancement throughout our public school 
system ; some provision for vocational education should be made for 
the boy who cannot attend school beyond the age of fourteen or 
sixteen. Again, provision of this kind should be made for the boy 
who is able to go through the high school but who cannot continue 
his education beyond that limit ; and then vocational education should 
be given in schools of college rank, such as we now have in the case 
of the colleges of engineering, law and medicine that admit students 
who have just graduated from the high school; and lastly, there 
should be, and there is, a grade of vocational education provided for 
those who are able to complete a course in the college of liberal arts 
before entering upon a technical preparation for their calling. But 
it is obvious that but a very small fraction of our people can post- 
pone their vocational preparation until they have finished the ordin- 
ary college curriculum. To refuse to let young people enter upon 
their vocational education until after they have finished a college 
course or even .a high school course is to refuse such education alto- 
gether to the great masses of our citizens. 

Speaking for the rural schools in particular now, we feel that 
they should offer preparation to their pupils for the calling of the 
farmer and of the farmer's wife ; this implies that the boy should be 
taught the principles that govern soil management, and plant and 
animal growth, in order to help him solve the problem of how to 
secure the largest crops at the least cost and yet maintain the fer- 
tility of the soil. But while insisting on this, we would also provide 
for him a sufficient commercial education to handle the business 
phases of his occupation. We would also have him familiar with 
some of the problems of government and economics so as to under- 
stand the relation of agriculture to other industries and to such 
things as railroad rates, tariff and taxation. We would endeavor 
to imbue him with civic righteousness and an appreciation of the 
duties that are incumbent upon all intelligent citizens as patriotic 
members of organized society. We would also have him interested 
in the study of social problems, especially those that affect the 
farmer, his social life, his school facilities, church privileges, etc. 
We would also make provision for his spiritual life and cultivate an 
interest in and a taste for the beautiful in nature, art, and literature, 
and a sympathy with all that makes modern civilization worth while. 
And with it all we would endeavor to create in the school an abiding 
faith in agriculture, a better attitude toward the farmer's occupation, 
an interest in the betterment of rural life and an appreciation of the 
many advantages of residence in the open country. 

We maintain that such a scheme of education, which is based 
upon the environment of the pupil, is calculated to be most effective 
from every point of view ; and that in case a pupil thus trained 
should leave the farm subsequently, to take up the life of a business 
man or professional man, there would be nothing to regret; for his 



14 North Dakota Educational Association 

education would be the best that could be devised for him while 
residing in the country, whether he remained there or subsequently 
moved to the city. 

For the elementary schools of the city we feel that the details 
of the curriculum should vary somewhat from those for the rural 
schools. We are not referring now to our smaller towns which are 
virtually rural communities, but to the cities which are really urban 
in their nature. In such schools the environment is quite different 
from that of rural schools and the probability that the pupil will 
eventually follow the farmer's calling is very small. His interests 
also will therefore be different. Many of the people about him are 
engaged in building operations involving a variety of manual indus- 
tries, and another great portion of the population are interested in 
business enterprises. For the vocational phases of the school work 
of these children, therefore, we would provide an introduction to 
manual industry, to business methods, and domestic arts, all merging 
into practical lines of manual training, commercial education, and 
domestic economy in the grammar grades and high school. 

It will be observed that this outline for vocational training in- 
cludes the girls and takes into account the fact that practically all 
of them will sometime in the future take up the calling of home- 
makers. We. therefore, provide training in domestic art and science. 
This, in the main, would be the same for the girls in the rural school 
as in the city school, though in the former a few things, like dairy- 
ing, might receive more emphasis than in the latter. 

The Committee believes that the "tools of learning," — reading, 
writing, spelling, arithmetic, etc., are needed by all people in all vo- 
cations ; and they must remain the chief concern, and take up the 
greater part of the time, in the elementary school, especially in the 
lower grades. But they need not monopolize the whole time. Many 
unessentials may be eliminated and ample room may thus be made 
for all the distinctively vocational work that it is feasible to do here. 
This must generally be limited, as implied above, to elementary 
agriculture, elementary manual training, and domestic arts. If any- 
thing more specialized is attempted it should be confined to the 
grammar grades and even there it can be offered only under the 
most favorable circumstances. 

But even with the elementary work here mentioned the teacher 
should be able to keep before the child more prominently than at 
present, the fact that he must in school hope and endeavor to make 
some preparation for his future calling. We insist that the school 
and the home shall be brought closer together than they are at 
present, by occupying the child while at school for at least a portion 
of his time in studying the problems that the family life is concerned 
with. 

RECOM MENDATIONS. 

I. We recommend that more provision be made for vocational 
education than we find in our schools at present. 



Adjustment of Educational Work 



2. That this provision be made in the public schools, both ele- 
mentary and secondary, and it should include agriculture, manual 
training and mechanical drawing, domestic science and domestic art, 
commercial training, pedagogy, and a practical treatment of natural 
science; and retain also a reasonable number of such subjects as are 
considered fundamental for the learned professions. It is not im- 
plied, of course, that all schools should introduce all these lines of 
work. Which subjects are selected by a given school will depend 
upon the dominant local interests and" upon the teaching staff and 
equipment of the school. 

3. That when a highly specialized type of training in specific 
trades is introduced it should be the outgrowth of well developed 
manual training courses, and such trade courses are not deemed 
feasible for our smaller towns at the present time. That for the 
present, a few trade schools connected with some of our state insti- 
tutions, and a few agricultural schools connected with some of the 
state experiment stations would supply our needs, and serve to show 
the possibilities of this kind of schools. 

4. That, in general, our schools should lay more stress upon the 
idea that the pupil is preparing himself for earning an honest living, 
and shall offer him every possible opportunity for determining what 
particular calling he is best adapted for, and for securing at least 
some general training for the same. 

CULTURE AND DISCIPLINE. 

( I ) CULTURE. 

If there is a chameleon in the English language it is the term 
culture which takes its hues and shades from the age. the people, the 
very individual who is found with the word on his lips. If it were 
merely a matter of curiosity that prompts us to discuss this subject 
we should surely stop to examine the character, of the age, the 
people, and the individuals who reveal themselves through the mean- 
ing which they give to this magic word, but it is more than our 
interest in the reflections of the past (which are so plainly visible in 
this mirror of men's ideas) that leads us to pursue this fleeting term. 
It is the interest which we feel in the present and the future, for not 
only has this many hued term the power to reveal to us the character 
of the users of the term but to a large measure man's concept of 
culture makes that character what it has been, what it is, and what 
it will be. 

Whatever the concept of culture has been at any time there has 
always been connected with that concept the idea that this culture 
contained the best things to be desired in education and in life. It 
is this power of the idea of culture to make or limit the civilization 
of an age that prompts us to write this paper, reinforced, let us 
confess, by the belief that our present conception of culture is ex- 



1 6 North Dakota Educational Association 

eluding some new and desirable acquisitions which would greatly 
contribute to social and individual progress. 

One cannot note these peculiarities and consequent results of 
the idea of culture without wondering if there is not some rational 
basis on which a true concept of culture might be founded, a basis 
which would admit the new and desirable culture and prevent the 
false emphasis which leads to the esoteric, the degenerate, the fanatic, 
or worse yet to stagnation. 

Before attempting to find this basis let us assume the definition 
which all users of the term assume, that culture connotes the highly 
desirable qualities of mind and body, and then if we can find the 
basis for determining the desirability we can come close to forming 
a rational working conception of the meaning of culture. 

In seeking for the most primary basis of values in human quali- 
ties, powers, or acquired tendencies, I can think of no basis more 
fundamental than the basis of persistence. Surely no quality, power, 
or tendency which tended to destroy the individual or the social or- 
ganism could be rationally considered as desirable culture. This is 
fundamental, and if the mind could foresee all the conditions under 
which the individual is to live and comprehend all the working out 
of cause and effect in the relationship of the individual to his physi- 
cal, social, and spiritual environment, this test of persistence would 
be the only basis necessary on which to found a rational conception 
of the desirable in culture. This, of course, is not entirely possible, 
but so far as the mind can foresee these conditions and relations this 
test is fundamental. 

But where the primary test is not available to us because of lack 
of knowledge, we are provided with a secondary test, which is not 
so accurate as the fonner would be but in many cases this secondary 
test is all that we have and it has the further advantage of including 
the conscious data, as we may call them, for estimating the values 
of qualities, powers, and activities of the organism. This secondary 
test is proximate because it is itself a derivative, to some extent, of 
the conditions and relationships of the past and hence a true guide 
only in so far as these conditions and relations are like those of the 
future. This secondary test is the sense of satisfaction. 

Let no one say that these tests are materialistic, for the former 
takes into account the whole relationship of man to God's universe 
and the second includes quality as well as quantity, duty as well as 
pleasure, spiritual as well as material satisfaction. It is no part of 
the purpose of these discussions to harmonize philosophically these 
senses of satisfaction but to employ them as we find them, only 
taking care to apply them rationally and scientifically. 

If these bases of the desirability of culture are accepted, we may 
say that within the limits of our term will be included all of those 
qualities, powers, and tendencies which best fit the individual and 
the social organism to persist and which will render the greatest 



Adjustment of Educational Wo rk 17 

satisfaction to the individual. It will be noticed that we say best 
fit the individual to persist and render the greatest satisfaction ; this 
is assuming that absolute culture is an abstraction which the finite 
mind can not attain but toward which it is always reaching and 
hence our working definition of culture includes the approximation 
of this perfect culture and our selection of the elements of culture 
recognizes this approximation. 

It will be noted that under this definition of culture is included 
power as well as qualities. This is warranted by the modern tend- 
encies to consider qualities themselves as manifestations of powers. 
Moreover we are not using the term culture in the limited sense of 
refinement but rather to include all of the desirable acquisitions of 
body and mind. To us a feeble person is no more cultured (though 
he may be more refined) than a person whose powers are unsym- 
metrical and badly directed. In other words we consider it the func- 
tion of cultivation to develop, harmonize, control the powers of the 
organism to rational ends rather than to refine it to feebleness. To 
our way of thinking it is not at all necessary that the kingdom of 
heaven shall suffer violence nor that the violent shall be able to take 
it by force. The cultivation of desirable powers is to us in fact a 
large part of the acquisition of culture. 

Before passing to another consideration of the general subject 
it is pertinent to point out that in the application of the standards 
above the test of universality is constantly applied by the sanest of 
minds and we might say that the extent to which any mind universal- 
izes its satisfaction is a real test of the sanity of that mind. This 
test prevents satisfaction from being a temporary guide merely and 
from leading to eccentricity. 

If the idea of culture has been generally arbitrary and often 
whimsical in its totality, it has been even more defective in emphasis 
laid upon the different phases and in the selection of the elements of 
these larger phases. While possibly there has seldom been a condi- 
tion in which a man without ethical culture would be considered a 
cultured gentleman, there have been times when a very small amount 
of morality was required under this idea of a cultured man. There 
certainly have been times when cleanliness was not included under 
culture, when industry was positively excluded from the idea, when 
utility was considered vulgar. Moreover within these larger phases 
there has been and is still a considerable of confusion. If we attempt 
to specify what constitutes ethical culture, or industrial culture, or 
esthetic culture, or domestic culture, or religious culture, or civic 
culture, or even physical culture desirable for a cultured individual 
we shall at once be made conscious of the difficulty of the task ; yet 
it is this very thing that must be done to make culture a definite aim 
in education and it is a little of this task that we propose to attempt 
guided by the principles already laid down and aware of the limita- 
tions both of human knowledge and of human reason. 



North Dakota Educational Association 



First among the larger phases of culture we shall place ethical 
culture (including a large part of civic). This phase is warranted 
by the test of persistence and the test of satisfaction. We do not 
need to argue this point for it is generally admitted, but we do need 
to look at what constitutes ethical culture. An ethical culture which 
does not include the duty and responsibility of the individual to so- 
ciety would be clearly defective luider the tests. An ethical culture 
which permits the individual to live as a parasite on the labor of 
others without adequate return is clearly perverted (and in practice 
our modern culture still permits slavery). First in general import- 
ance and first in need of reform we shall mention this phase of cult- 
ure and suggest that the already known principles of right be applied 
to the several social conditions and relations. 

Next to ethical culture we are inclined to place a phase of cult- 
ure very close to ethical in many of its applications. This phase we 
shall call industrial culture. This phase has not come to its own; it 
has been under the shadow of a perversion of the moral culture 
which has permitted and still permits slavery, but with the growing 
repugnance of this immorality it is coming into its kingdom. Tested 
by the primary test of persistence industrial culture is indispensable. 
Tested by its ability to afford satisfaction it will rank high as soon 
as it is freed from the burden of the parasite and becomes a volun- 
tary outlet for man's intelligent activity. Even now in America we 
see signs of the satisfaction which industry can afford. 

Esethetic culture has been so long recognized as valuable culture 
that we do not need to argue its case, farther than to insist that this 
phase of culture be fairly and equally distributed to all members of 
society to the end that it may enrich the lives of all, and to point out 
the necessity of applying to esthetic satisfaction the test of universal- 
ity to prevent its leading to perversion. 

We shall not in this place say more about domestic culture, than 
to urge its necessity both under our tests and to the end that, the 
American home which seems to be in a state of dissolution, especially 
in the cities, shall be preserved as the foundation of our society. 

The value of physical culture is generally conceded and almost 
as generally ignored. We merely suggest that sanitation, health, 
physical power, physical utility, and physical grace and beauty are 
desirable culture and should be pursued with all the knowledge and 
means at our command. 

For the last we have reserved religious culture not because it is 
last in importance but because from the nature of religious culture 
we find it so intimately connected with every other phase as to 
properly be treated in connection with each rather than by itself, 
and hence we prefer to treat it after each of the other phases has been 
mentioned. Religion is based upon reasonable belief and for this 
reason gives to each kind of culture the wider universality of this 
belief. The line between reasonable belief and unreasonabl belief 
we consider to be the line between religion and superstition and sup- 



Adjustment of Education al Work 19 

erstition we shall exclude from desirable culture. Our only sugges- 
tion with reference to religious culture is that this line of reasonable 
belief be kept up to the advanced position which it should hold with 
reference to knowledge, and that it should be sufficiently vital to 
result in action in the several fields of human activities and interests. 
With this necessarily brief consideration of culture and its larger 
aspects we shall turn to the distribution of this culture to the mem- 
bers of society. 

We are not enunciating any very new doctrine when we say 
that we believe that ethical, religious, and esthetic culture should be 
offered to all without reference to vocation or caste, or sex. That a 
large part of civic, domestic, industrial, and physical culture should 
also be common. We would be doing something radical and novel 
if we were to bring about conditions, economic, moral and civic 
which would permit us to ofifer this culture to all and permit them 
to accept it. Much has yet to be done in practical morals before this 
desirable distribution of culture is possible. 

Under the distribution of industrial culttire we wish to point out 
that there are some elements of culture which are necessary only to 
those who follow this vocation or that, such as the use of some ma- 
chine, instrument, tool, method of industry, etc. This specific culture 
should be furnished with no tendency to degrade. 

No discussion of culture, at least from an educational view- 
point, will be satisfactory without mention of the question of the 
transferability of culture. We have no space in this paper for a 
complete discussion of the psychological considerations involved in 
this dispute. No one, however, in theory, at least, believes in the 
total transferability of any phase of knowledge, power, or skill to 
every possible use. As far as the truth can be told briefly it is simply 
this. The various wholes of knowledge, power, skill which the mind 
is constantly reconstructing and bringing into use are composites 
made of many elements. These elements enter to dififerent degrees 
into each of these wholes. It would be almost impossible to furnish 
the mind or body with any element that would not enter into some 
of these units of required culture. The extent to which these ele- 
ments enter into the various complexes, and to which they are avail- 
able for use will determine how general these elements are. In this 
sense there is the more general culture and the more specific, the 
specific being warranted rather by value of the service which it will 
render when needed than upon the generality of its use. Both terms 
are relative, but it is a fundamental law of mind that it will not long 
continue to do two things where one will do and for this reason 
wherever an element which has this general use can also take the 
place of one of more special use the mind will be sure to employ it. 
This fact can be taken into account with advantage in furnishing the 
individual with the elements of culture. Much duplication can thus 
be avoided and more time given to the unifying of these elements 
into those combinations in which they will be most often needed. 



20 North Dakota Educational Association 

This will mean bringing the individual's culture to a degree of 
efficiency which will make it immediately practical. 

We shall close this discussion with the observation that the ele- 
ments of this culture are acquired before maturity and urge that all 
agencies of culture, — the home, the church, the school, and the state, 
make it possible for the youth not only to acquire the elements of 
desirable culture but that the youth be retained under these agencies 
of culture until the elements have been unified into a fair degree of 
efficiency. This duty which society owes in imparting culture to the 
youth is only second to the need of grasping the right idea of what 
culture is desirable. Both are requisite for social progress and indi- 
vidual perfection. 

With this brief survey of culture we will turn to the means of 
culture or to discipline. 

(2) DISCIPLINE. 

/. General Statement: 

1. It is the general purpose of discipline to develop the inherent 
tendencies of the individual. 

2. Discipline includes : 

a. The selection of the culture desired. 

b. The determining of the emphasis to be laid upon each 

phase of this culture. 

c. The selecting of the means (including material and 

method) for the development of these phases of 
culture. 

3. The basis for determining the desirable culture and the em- 
phasis to be laid upon each phase has been outlined under culture. 
The means will be determined by the principles of development or 
growth of the mind and body as well as by those conditions determ- 
ining the desirability of culture. 

//. Statement of Formal Discipline: 

1. We have seen that there is no general culture in the sense 
that all of any kind of culture can be totally transferred to any par- 
ticular use, but that comparatively there is some culture that has 
wider application than others because its elements enter more ex- 
tensively into the knowledge, power, or skill needed by the individual. 
So far as discipline aims to give these more general elements of 
culture there is a general discipline. We have seen too that there 
are some elements of desirable culture that do not enter so ex- 
tensively into the desirable activities of the individual. That disci- 
pline which furnishes this less general culture we may call specific, 
remembering that it is only relatively so, 

2. The physiological and psychological foundations for the 
above assumptions are that all acts of body and mind are complexes 
composed of many elements and that while all of these elements are 
not available for any particular act, yet there is a broad range in the 



Adjustment of Educational W ork 2 1 

combining- of these elements. This being true, that is the best cult- 
ured mind which has the widest range of these elements and has them 
best unified for combined use when needed. 
///. The Means: 

A. In selecting the material for an elementary course of study 
these considerations appear important : 

a. Preference should be given to those studies which will 

best furnish these general elementary data mentioned 
above. 

b. When these elements will at the same time lead to 

knowledge, power or skill, which can be applied com- 
pletely, identically, to the needs of the individual they 
are especially to be preferred. 

c. While matured efficiency is not possible in the schools in 

the elementary grades this work should aim at this 
final efficiency. 

d. No subject or exercise which has not this aim of furnish- 

ing definite culture should have a place in the schools 
on the general assumption that it furnishes mental 
discipline, for we have seen that discipline is a means 
to an exact end, the furnishing- of desirable, definite 
culture. 

B. In selecting the methods of discipline those methods should 
be chosen which will be in closest harmon}^ with the conditions under 
which the individual will be required to apply his acquisitions of 
knowledge, power, and skill. 

RESUME. 

We believe that there is need of a broader conception of culture, 
one that will admit all those elements needed for the progress of 
society and that will give due emphasis to every acquisition which 
improves the individual and the social organism. We have offered 
as rational tests of such a conception of culture the ability of the 
quality, power, or acquired tendency : 

1. To fit the individual and the social organism to persist, so 
far as the mind can foresee this ability. 

2. The ability of the quality, power, or acquired tendency to 
render satisfaction to the individual, the latter test being guided by 
the universality of the satisfaction. 

In considering the comparative value of the various general 
classes of culture we have insisted that they be subjected to the above 
tests and valued accordingly. 

Concerning the distribution of this desirable culture we have 
asked that religious, ethical, and esthetic culture be offered to all 
members of society alike and that those phases of industrial culture 
which are common should receive a like common treatment, but that 
specific culture in this line be offered to those who may need it and 



22 North Dakota Educational Association 

always without any tendency to degrade any phase of industrial 
culture to the use of any particular class. We have suggested that 
in perfectly organized society industrial culture should render as 
great satisfaction as esthetic, and that it has only been prevented 
from doing so by the institution of servitude which has distorted the 
natural tendencies of the organism to find satisfaction in all the 
necessary activities. 

Concerning discipline we have recognized 

1. The more general value of the elements which can enter into 
the widest range of application. 

2. The superiority of those combinations of knowledge or skill 
or power which can be applied identically as they were acquired. 

3. That no subject or exercise which does not have a definite 
aim in the securing of some phase of the desirable culture should 
have a place in a course of study. 

4. That the methods should be in harmony with the conditions 
under which the culture is to be applied. 

Finally we will say in closing that we believe that a broad ra- 
tional basis for the concept of desirable culture will do much to make 
way for the advent of a social organization in which the individual 
may attain to a higher exuberance of mental and physical culture 
than that of the Greeks, a moral culture never before conceived of, 
a civic and industrial culture which will enable the social organism 
to become highly effective in producing and sustaining such indi- 
vidual qualities and powers, and a spiritual and religious culture 
which shall be a worthy superstructure to such a foundation and 
round man out toward the perfecting of his inherent possibilities 
to perform their widest and highest uses. 

MORAL AND CIVIC EDUCATION. 

The moral and civic phases of education must not be neglected,, 
if the individual is to be socially efficient in every way. They, like 
the other essential phases, look toward the ultimate and universal 
ideal — the completely socialized individual — and each of them, like 
each of the others, makes its own peculiar contribution in that 
direction. 

The ideal of moral education is the knowledge, practice, and 
love of justice between men in the daily associations of life. It is 
not enough merely to know what is morally right, such knowledge 
must be supplemented by consistent and appropriate action. And 
there must still be added the love of justice. To know clearly, to 
practice consistently, and to love devotedly the "sqiiare deal" among 
men is the ideal of moral education. 

The individual whose moral nature is to be developed must have 
the chance to learn zi' hat is right, to do what is right, and to love 
both for their own sake. This opportunity is to be found in con- 



Adjustment of Educational Work 23 

temporary life, history, and literature. Moral situations within these 
fields, consisting largely of those in which truly great men and 
women are placed, are the material upon which the moral nature 
must feed to secure its proper development. History and literature 
successively widen the field within which such situations are found 
and thus enrich both the quantity and the quality of material far 
beyond what they could be, if dependence were placed upon con- 
temporary life alone. 

Everywhere material for moral education should , be selected 
with great care so that the individual may be brought into contact 
with significant and typical events and great men and women highly 
worthy of his study and emulation. Text-books within the three 
fields named could greatly increase their usefulness as a means in 
moral education by bringing together more material of such a nature 
and by excluding much which they now contain of little or no moral 
value. 

With individuals, of undeveloped and indetermined personality, 
direct ethical instruction .and detailed analysis of moral situations, 
ideals and principles is of much less value than unanalyzed examples 
of noble conduct simply absorbed and imitated. This is true whether 
the material be taken from contemporar}^ life, history, or literature. 
It is most strikingly true as regards the moral influence of the 
teacher which, unconscious as it may be upon the part of both her 
pupil and herself, may reach farther than any other — even all others. 

The ideal of civic education is the knowledge and practice of 
duties to, and the feeling of patriotism for, municipality, state, and 
nation. In each case the practice presupposes the knowledge, and 
both of these — at least when they are most efficient — assume a 
thorough-going patriotism. Here as in the case of moral education 
the materials for study are to be found within the fields of con- 
temporary life, history, and literature. All three present situations 
involving the inter-relation of government and individual. In gen- 
eral the moral and civic ideals are so closely related — presupposing 
each other as they do — that much the same things are to be said of 
them and that they may often be cultivated at the same time and by 
the use of the same materials. 

In the handling of the materials of moral and civic education, 
large use should be made of cooperation. The individual educated 
outside of active relations to others can acquire no moral and civic 
qualities. The school must become more social and less individual 
in its method, if it is to gain ground in moral and civic education. 

Further valuable suggestions dealing with the inter-relation of 
individual and society and the graded arrangement of subject-matter 
for social study in the elementary schools are given by Dr. Gillette 
in his article on "Social Study in the Elementary Schools" which 
this report includes. 



24 North Dakota Educational Association 

RELIGION IN OUR ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. 

Education, as a preparation for complete living, and as includ- 
ing the whole man, should provide for the development of the re- 
ligious nature. 

Further, since historically and as a matter of fact, religion and 
morality are usually very closely associated, and since the history 
of civilization plainly proves that morality for its highest efficiency 
demands some kind of religious basis, the emphasis on the develop- 
ment of character requires that moral education be reenforced by 
religious motives. 

But as the separation of church and school is a recognized and 
desirable feature of American social evolution, the formal or text- 
book teaching of religion in our schools is, in general, either impos- 
sible or unwise. 

There is, however, a distinct field of religious training that be- 
longs logically and practically to the public school. The concepts 
which the child forms in his study of nature and natural science are 
not complete without the general concept of God, his creation, and 
man's place and obligations in this creation. Nor are his ideas of 
humanity as gathered from his study of literature and from his 
school life complete without a knowledge of the ethical teachings 
of Christ. 

We believe, therefore, that these general ideas of God and His 
creation, of man and his place in creation, these principles of Chris- 
tian ethics, and reverence for these ideas and principles rightly be- 
long to the field of elementary education, and should be taught by 
men and women whose attitude toward these fundamental ideas and 
principles is right. Further, throughout the course the school should 
seek to develop in the mind and heart of the child a belief in God as 
the Father and creator of us all, should inculcate a spiritual concep- 
tion of life, a Christian spirit, and a religious attitude of mind, and 
seek to arouse an abiding conviction of the brotherhood of men as 
children of one common Father. In accomplishing these results 
very much must always be left to the wisdom and tact of the teacher. 
The most important thing must always be the atmosphere of genuine 
reverence for sacred interests, the moral uplift from the devotion to 
high ideals, and the influence and example of the Christian teacher. 
Not the formal teaching of religion, but religious teachers and teach- 
ing religiously is the true solution of the problem of religious edu- 
cation in our public schools. 

Further than this the committee is not willing to recommend 
for the work of the school. We feel, however, that more formal and 
definite religious instruction is needed. But the primary responsibil- 
ity for religious education must devolve upon the church and home. 
As a committee we most strongly urge an awakening on the part of 
these agencies to the imperative need of progress in the intelligent 
and effective discharge of this responsibility. 



Adjustment of Edncational Work 25 

II. THE COURSE OF STUDY FOR ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. 

INTRODUCTION. 

The Course of Study for the common schools of North Dakota 
has done immense good to the schools of the state, more especially 
the rural schools. It meant much to substitute some degree of order 
for the confusion that must have existed before ; it was of great 
value to pupils, moving from place to place as much as is the case 
in any new state, to have reasonably definite standards of gradua- 
tion ; the eighth grade graduations offered definite ideal to thousands 
of North Dakota boys and girls, and thus kept many of them in 
school a year or two longer than otherwise would have been the case. 
Thousands, too, of our teachers find in the Course of Study a con- 
stant guide in the daily planning of work, and in the orderly presen- 
tation of subject-matter. Your committee approaches these investi- 
gations with a lively appreciation of these and other values the 
Course has had and now has. 

The Committee of Seven, however, has throughout its investi- 
gation had the feeling that in American educational systems gener- 
ally courses of study for the elementary grades have not received 
the attention that is their due. Changing conditions have made it 
necessary to add new fields, new subjects, to the curriculum. Oc- 
casionally a legislature in its enthusiasm over some particularly good 
thing has prescribed so many minutes a day, etc., to that particular 
thing. The force of conservatism, though has kept the older subjects 
nearly unchanged in content, and the new is generally organized by 
its enthusiasts along its own lines, so that new and old stand in our 
curriculum, like the facts in the minds of Lowell's "Critic :" 
"Each a separate fact, undeniably true. 
But with him or each other they'd nothing to do." 

Just now the particular solution urged for our educational 
troubles is to make education "fit for life" by adding some "voca- 
tional education" to the aggregation of facts already imposed on the 
children of America. That there is sound argument for greater 
emphasis on the future calling of the child, your Committee has been 
agreed from the beginning of its work. On the other hand and far 
more important, is the simplification of the Course of Study long 
asked for by teachers and by the general public, and formally en- 
dorsed by the North Dakota Educational Association in 1908. Few 
states, if any, have a better Course of Study than we, yet only a 
cursory examination of our course is needed to discover that a child 
is supposed to be carrying five distinct lines of work in the first 
three years, another is added in the fourth, another in the fifth, and 
in the seventh grade, a pupil carries eight lines of work, besides 
general lessons in writing, agriculture, drawing and what not ; and 
that any school of six or seven grades, as is not at all uncommon, 
has thirty to thirty-five recitations to provide for, — all of which 
would seem to show ample justification for the resolution. The 



26 Nortli Dakota Educational Association 

fact that this congested condition is common to elementary programs 
over the northern states generally may soothe our feelings to some 
extent, but does not alter the fact that vigorous changes are de- 
manded. So at the Committee's second meeting, it was unani- 
mously agreed "that this Committee act in its recommendations on 
the view that a mere revision of the present elementary course is 
insufficient to meet our present needs, and hence our recommenda- 
tions look toward a thorough reorganization of elementary educa- 
tion in North Dakota." 

That this is the work of years instead of a few months, that it 
must come, when it does come not as the work of one Committee but 
as the work on many minds each working out its own phase of the 
problem ; that it involves ultimately the rewriting of the text-books 
of several of the subjects, we recognize. Our resolution does not 
commit us to a completion of the task ; it states that our recommen- 
dations "look toward" a reorganization of elementary education. We 
knew we could only make a beginning, but took our instructions to 
mean that we were not to suggest some temporary palliatives, but if 
we could not furnish exact prescriptions, we should at least do what 
we could to diagnose the disease, and suggest the general lines of 
treatment. 

As has already been indicated, our investigations toward this- 
reorganization are along two principal lines, first, and mainly, the 
simplification of the present course, and secondly, the introduction 
of some new matter, or treatment of old matter from a new view- 
point, to prepare the pupil for earning a living and for more intelli- 
gent citizenship. In simplifying the Course, it was first agreed that 
"we favor a more extended use of the principles of correlation and 
alternation of subjects to the end that the number of subjects re- 
quired of pupils at a given time be reduced." As long, however, as 
the amount of material required for each of the subjects demands 
five days in the week for the several years it is pursued, any con- 
siderable amount of alternation is impossible. So the real problem 
becomes the reduction of the amount of material called for in several 
at least of the courses. 

The essential parts of any subject are those parts that contri- 
bute clearly and definitely toward the aim or aims justifying the place 
given to that subject in the curriculum. In their recommendations 
of subject-matter for their respective subjects the various sub-com- 
mittees have taken thoroughness rather than completeness as their 
aim — a mastery of these essentials rather than as attempt to cover 
all the details, even seemingly important ones, that the subject might 
include. Further, they have not felt impelled to add to these essen- 
tials anv subject-matter solely or mainly on the ground of its sup- 
posed value for mental discipline ; whatever has mental discipline 
as its sole or chief claim to its inclusion in the course has been re- 
jected. The reasons for this appear in the report on "Formal Disci- 



Adjustment of Educational Work 27 

pline and General Culture ;" suffice to say here, that, granting the 
importance of mental discipline as an aim in education, it is an aim 
whose realization is far less dependent on the material chosen, than 
on the way the material is presented by the teacher and studied by 
the pupil. 

The application of these principles is well illustrated in the rec- 
ommendations for arifhnictic. Believing that the How of solving 
the problems of number in ordinary life will generally be evident 
when the need arises, and that the chief thing to get in school is 
readiness and accuracy in computation, the recommendations call for 
"more drill upon fundamentals," aiming at "greater efficiency in the 
simple processes." Believing that what time we devote to the How, 
should be to the Plow of doing things the pupil is most likely to have 
need for doing, and that with most of our children in North Dakota, 
these problems will be in large measure those connected with rural 
life — a. phase but scantily treated in most texts in arithmetic — the 
committee recommends a supplementary text with this class of prob- 
lems. All "puzzle problems" several topics like true discount and 
cube root and denominations little used, like furlong, quarter (of 
weight), etc., are rejected, because they have no practical value — do 
not contribute to the end in view in Arithmetic — and their room is 
needed for other and more valuable material in this and other sub- 
jects. This reduction in subject matter will, it is believed, gain the 
time needed for the extra drill on fundamentals, and still reduce the 
time needed for this subject to one or two lessons a week the first 
two years, and not to exceed four lessons a week for the remaining 
six years. 

As to reading, most of the ommittee's recommendations refer 
rather to method of treatment than to the subject matter to be read. 
The Committee does, however, wish to condemn the practice, not 
authorized by the Course of Study but followed in some schools, of 
filling up the reading period with a lot of informational reading, 
geography, physiology, nature study, etc., and to insist upon the 
choice of the material for its inspiration, its interest to the pupil, its 
power of helping him to love the good in literature and the good in 
life. They recommend, too, easy material and a great deal of it. To 
this end, they would eliminate from elementary grade work such 
matter as Burke's Orations, Bunker Hill Oration, Ancient Mariner, 
complete plays of Shakespeare (short extracts like the orations of 
Brutus, Antony, and Portia are approved), and would advance many 
other selections to higher grades; e. g., Rhoecus, Grandfather's 
Chair, Tales of Shakespeare. As to method in reading, the Com- 
mittee feels, not so much that the Course is at fault, as that the 
actual teaching is so often not in line with the Course. They rec- 
ommend better literary preparation of teachers, to the end that they 
may read pleasingly and well ; that the teacher do much more read- 
ing to the pupils than is common, of good things from literature, 
short poems and stories, extracts from long poems, fiction or history, 



28 North Dakota Educational Association 

geography, or nature descriptions of literary merit. To do this well, 
the teacher must prepare herself, must read and assimilate the 
thought of the selection, perhaps practice it aloud, before presenting 
it to her school. There must too be greater emphasis on careful 
daily preparation of reading lessons by both teacher and pupils ; to 
the end that pupils may study intelligently, more care is needed in 
assigning reading lessons (and language) than in any other lessons 
of the daily program. If "reading is a key to knowledge," let us 
train out pupils in this view by expecting them to know and tell to 
us the substance of what they have read. We will thus develop in 
the pupils' minds the feeling that reading a lesson is not naming over 
the words, but is really studying the lesson, and this treatment of 
all subjects alike, reading, language, geography, history, physiology, 
will make them help each other — will correlate them in one of the 
best ways. This does not mean, of course, value mainlv from the 
beauty of the author's wording, or from their appeal to the emotions ; 
it does mean that our pupils are to be trained into the habit of read- 
ing to learn, and that not until they can and do read in this spirit 
are they in a position to appreciate the beauty or to get the moral 
lesson or the inspiration. 

The aim of language study is stated in the Course of Study to 
be "the mastery of literature" and the Course seems to be laid out 
and discussed with that aim in view. In our judgment this is a 
mistake. The proper aim for language in the grades is that other 
aim occasionally referred to but not worked out in the course — that 
of "teaching the child power of expression." In discussing the sub- 
ject of reading above, we have indicated what we believe is the best 
means of training in language, — namely, to train a pupil in all sub- 
jects to find the meaning in what he reads and then to tell it to 
others. When he can tell it orally, then he is ready to write it, and 
the aim is to have him write it in increasingly better form. So our 
recommendations look to the reduction of the amount of formal 
language work, the dropping of much of the details of parts of 
speech, a lessening of the emphasis now placed on literature in the 
language course and the planning of a course that will show the 
teacher as definitely what to do to give the pupil real practice in the 
art of expression, as the present course shows her how to teach lit- 
erature and grammar. And, too, the Committee believes that this 
plan, by increasing the pupils' ability to understand what he reads, 
will in the end do more to help the pupil to appreciate and enjoy 
good literature than is at present gained by trying to teach the sub- 
ject under the head of language. 

The argument for education at public expense is based in large 
measure on the necessity of preparing the young for the coming 
duties of citizenship. To this end, history and civics get their places 
in our school programs. Few would claim, however, that history 
and civics as presented in the average texts and courses of study 
are doing this work at all efifectively. In the opinion of the Com- 



Adjustment of Educational Work 29 

mittee this ineffectiveness is due in large measure to unwise choice 
of material which in turn occurs because both author and teacher do 
not have the right aim in view. 

We deny that history for the grades should attempt to be a 
compendium of the events that have attracted national attention or 
that civics should be solely or even mainly an outline of the consti- 
tution and code of state and nation. In these subjects the aim should 
be first and above all else to arouse an abiding interest in the life 
about us and a desire to know more about it. Children are inter- 
ested, not in dead facts and institutions as such, but in human beings, 
what they have done or are doing and why. Hence, we believe in 
emphasizing the human element, the biographical side, in grade his- 
tory. And, too. history can well be shortened. What lessons have 
the stories of thirteen colonies that the stories of three can not teach ? 
Why must every administration be provided with its important 
events? Likewise, in civics, not what the law defines as the duties 
of each and every official, is of interest, but what does he actually 
do, and why does it need to be done- 

And is the pupil's present and future relation to his govern- 
mental machinery the only thing prospective citizenship calls on him 
to investigate? Should he not learn something of the community 
life of which he is a part; — the mutual and cooperative nature of 
society, its ethical basis and its demands on each one, the world's 
system of production, the division of labor and the interdependence 
of the producing groups, and the service performed or contribution 
made by each individual or institution which helps to make our 
community life? 

Geography is in the curriculum in answer to the questions of 
the child and the man about their natural environment. Particular 
phases of the study of environment we call respectively geography, 
nature study, and agriculture, and in more advanced work these may 
be quite distinct. In grade work, however, it is impossible to separ- 
ate them without, on the one hand, destroying their interrelations 
and help for each other, and on the other hand complicating the 
program. So our recommendations join the three in one series of 
lessons running through the eight years, though calling for only two 
or three lessons a week for the first three or four years. The one 
further fact to note here is the increased emphasis this course gives, 
as we believe is needed in North Dakota, to nature study, home 
geography and the things that help understand agricultural problems. 

Aside from agriculture. Manual Training and Domestic Science 
are most prominent among the newer subjects demanding place in 
the curriculum. The Committee is unanimous in recognizing the 
need of training for the hand as well as for the mind, and of training 
the future bread-maker as well as the future bread-winner. The 
detailed recommendations for a course in these two lines are given 
below, and it is the belief that the larger towns and a steadily grow- 
ing number of smaller towns will find in such courses a strong factor 



30 North Dakota Educational Association 

in the maintenance of a good school curriculum. In the ordinary 
rural school practical difficulties to be overcome in introducing these 
subjects are so great as to make at present generally impossible, in 
our judgment, to go farther in this line than agriculture for the boys 
and sewing for the girls. 

The subject of Physiology is not discussed, but it is not to be 
inferred from this that the Committee ranks physiology as a subject 
of small importance. A "sound body" ranks on an equality with a 
"sound mind." The Course in Physiology as revised recently elim- 
inates the excessive emphasis heretofore given to anatomy and places 
the emphasis on hygiene and sanitation ; it aims to develop an inter- 
est in the larger problems of the health of the community, and 
through these teach lessons of personal hygiene as well as make 
clear one's responsibility for the health of his neighbors; it aims to 
clear one's responsibility for the health of his neighbors ; it aims 
toward a more practical treatment of stimulants and narcotics, — 
all of which meets the committee's hearty approval, and our omission 
of a report on this subject is to be so understood. 

Correlations and Alternations. — One of the striking elements of 
incompleteness in our report is the failure to work out a program of 
correlations and alternations of subjects. A second thought will 
convince one, however, that the arranging of these in detail is almost 
if not the final step in making a course of study ; as such, it would be 
some distance in the future for us at this stage of our work. A few 
words may be offered here to show the general plan we have in view. 
In the first two grades for example, if reading receives ten periods a 
week, language three, and number work two ; if three lessons a week 
are given<to nature study in the fall and spring and to physiology in 
the winter, and one period daily for a variety of general lessons like 
the history stories, the teacher's reading to the pupils, etc. This 
would ofifer a wider range of work than is usually offered now and 
at no greater cost in time. Again, for the next three grades four 
periods a week would accommodate the nature study geography, 
and physiology in the same way, and history would require only two 
periods a week more. In the upper grades history should give place 
to civics for a term in each of at least two years, and when agricult- 
ure is offered as a separate subject in the eighth grade it would take 
the place of geography. The details will not probably work out 
exactly as suggested here, but this will indicate in a general way 
what the Committee had in mind. 



Adjustment of Educational Work 31 

COURSES OF STUDY IN ARITHMETIC. 

GRADE I. 

First six months : The work is oral and largely objective — no 
figures used except as an exercise in writing. 

1. Knowledge of numbers from i to 10, obtained by means of 
objects. 

2. Memorize these facts of addition : 

234567892345678345674565 
111111112222222333334445 

Include the corresponding facts of subtraction. 

3. Idea and respective relation of foot and yard, pint and quart, 
cent, nickel and dime. 

4. Idea of inch, square inch and cubic inch, and their use as 
units of measure, limited to 10. 

5. Number relations expressed by 2's, 3's, 4's and 5's, and 
halves, thirds, fourths and fifths, limited to 10. 

6. During these months avoid the use of such expressions as 
plus, minus, subtract, multiply by, divide by. 

Rest of the year: The preceding work continued, but written 
problems ma_v now be given and the common mathematical signs and 
expressions introduced. 

7. Learn to count and write numbers to 100. 

8. Roman numerals to XII, from the clock dial. 

GRADE II. . 

About half of each lesson period should be given to oral exer- 
cises, the teacher stating the problem or reading it and the children 
answering instantly. 

Problems placed on the blackboard for the pupil's seat work 
should be nearly all abstract, the concrete examples being given^ 
orally. 
Scope of work: 

I. Memorize these facts of addition: 

67896789789899 
54326543654656 



Include the corresponding facts of subtraction. 

2. Adding short columns of 2's, 3's, 4's, 5's and 6's. 

3. Subtracting 2's, 3's, 4's, 5's and 6's from numbers below 60. 

4. Multiplication tables to 6 x 10, including the corresponding 
facts of division. 

5. Reading and writing numbers to i.ooo. 

6. Idea of halves, thirds, fourths, fifths and sixths of objects, 
and of numbers within the limits of 60. 

7. Idea and respective relations of quart, peck and bushel ; linear 



32 North Dakota Educational Association 

inch, foot and yard ; cent, nickel, dime and dollar ; pint, quart, and 
gallon; $i, $2, $5 and $10 bills. 

8. Review idea of square inch and cubic inch, and their use as 
units of measure. 

9. Solution of problems involving one operation within the lim- 
its of 60. 

GRADE III. 

I. Memorize these facts of addition: 

78978998999 
65476578789 



Include the corresponding facts of subtraction. 

2. The course of work in addition completed that was begun in 
Grade II, Topic 2, now taking columns of 7's, 8's and 9's. 

3. Subtracting 7's, 8's and 9's from numbers below 60. 

4. Course in addition begun in ist and 2d Grade is completed 
here. 

Teach "carrying," in addition. 

5. Subtraction, including "borrowing." 

6. Multiplication and division tables through 10 x 10. 

7. Multiplying by numbers of one figure. 

8. Short division. 

GRADE IV. 

1. Multiplication and division tables through 12 x 12. 

2. Multiplying by numbers of two figures or more. 

3. Long division. 

GRADE V. 

An elementary but systematic treatment of common and decimal 
fractions — (many simple ideas of common fractions having been 
learned in the preceding grades.) 

The commonest topics in denominate numbers, such as United 
States Money, linear measure, surface measure, cubic measure, liquid 
measure, dry measure, time measure, avoirdupois weight. 

GRADE VI. 

Treatment of common and decimal fractions extended. Men- 
suration : linear and surface measure, land measure ; triangles, meas- 
uring lumber, rectangles and rectangular solids, wood. An element- 
ary treatment of percentage and interest. 

GRADE VII. 

Common and decimal fractions : review of principles, and a final 
study of the more difficult cases of multiplication and division. 
Greatest common divisor, and least common multiple. Simple work 



Adjustment of Educational Work 33 

in percentage. Interest — general method. Mensuration : trepeziums, 
parallelograms, trapezoid, circles, prisms, cylinders. 

GRADE VIII. 

Thorough treatment of percentage, with commercial discount, 
commission and insurance, taxes, government revenues, a simple 
treatment. 

Interest, with promissory notes, partial payments (limited to 
one or two payments). Compound interest (limited to a study of 
the principle and the solution of a small number of simple problems), 
bank discount, stocks and bonds (limited to a study of the principle 
and the solution of a few simple problems). 

Simple proportion. Square root. Mensuration : pyramids, 
cones, spheres ; similar surfaces, similar solids and their ratios. Lon- 
gitude and time — standard time (a very brief treatment). 

CHANGES. 

Additions. — Problems in Agriculture: Hay in mow^s and 
stacks, fencing, silos, creameries, live and dressed weight of animals, 
water in plant growth, fertilizers. These would be given as part of 
the work throughout the school. 

Omissions. — Omit cube root and the metric system which are 
now prescribed in the Course of Study, and omit the directions for 
holding pupils "responsible for what the text book contains" (e. g., 
Fourth Year, First Month). The text book might contain troy and 
apothecary's weight, true discount, present worth, foreign exchange 
and various other subjects which are not included in this course. 

The course of study is too verbose. It should be simplified, and 
thus greatly improved, by striking out many meaningless, needless, 
or inappropriate sentences and paragraphs. For example, in the 
first year, the remarks upon the philosophy of number. They do 
not belong in a course of study. Then such directions as, "Show 
that 2 + 3 has the same value as 3 + 2, etc." Assume that the teacher 
and pupil have common sense and eliminate mere verbiage. 

RECOM MENDATIONS. 

1. Reduce the amount of subject matter, (a) by eliminating 
certain subjects as cube root and the metric system, and (b) giving 
less extensive treatment to certain other topics. 

2. Diminish the time now devoted to arithmetic, — giving but a 
small allotment to it in the first and second school years, and omitting 
it from the daily program once a week throughout the rest of the 
elementary course. 

3. More drill in the fundamentals, — better training in efficiency 
in simple processes. 

4. A supplement to the usual text, containing problems in agri- 
culture for the different grades. 



34 North Dakota Educational Association 

5. Simplify the course and save much time, — by omitting many 
of the tiresome and trivial details as to matter, and all suggestions 
as to method that are of questionable value. 

READING IN OUR ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. 

The committee believe that the following points need special 
emphasis : 

1. The primary aim in reading is the recognition of ideas by 
means of written symbols. The ultimate result should be the form- 
ing of a cultivated taste for the best literature, a genuine love of 
reading, and the power to read easily, rapidly, and accurately. 

2. That these results may be obtained the pupil should be re- 
quired to read widely, and the emphasis should be upon the necessity 
of a large amount of supplementary reading, not too difficult. 

3. The emphasis should be shifted from oral reading which is 
little used, to silent or personal reading. This statement should not 
be understood, however, as implying that the pupil should be allowed 
to neglect the proper interpretation in vocal terms, but is intended 
as a recognition of the proper direction of needed emphasis only. 
There should also be frequent tests to ensure a proper understanding 
of the work covered, remembering always that a good reader is one 
who rapidly discovers the thought of the printed page, holds it 
clearly in mind, and, through expression, can readily convey this 
thought to others. 

That the pupil may become a good reader, there should be much 
practice in rapid reading, and he should often be required to repro- 
duce the real meaning of the author in language and form of ex- 
pression which shall adequately represent not only the thought, but 
the real spirit and feeling of the writer. This may be facilitated by 
the use of the expressional paraphrase, that is, through asking the 
pupil to formulate or amplify the meaning of accent, emphasis and 
inflection in suitable words. Another aid to this end is to require 
the pupil to present a description or narration as actually seen or 
heard, as present and realized. In all this we are to remember that 
there is no impression without expression. 

4. Reading work should be definitely and intimately correlated 
with the general work of the school, especially with language, his- 
tory, nature study, geography, and other studies which put the pupil 
in touch with his natural and social environment. The subject mat- 
ter should utilize, so far as possible, the present, familiar experience 
of the pupil, and the new should grow naturally out of what is al- 
ready known. In all this, however, it should never be forgotten that 
the emphasis is on the subject matter as pure literature, not as the 
source of information. 

5. It should always be kept in mind that action is the child's 
natural mode of expression, and hence the story, the epic, and the 



Adjustment of Educational Work 35 

drama should be freely used. Also, the child should be encouraged 
in the graphic reproduction, and even dramatic representation of the 
portion read through expressive activity. 

6. Greater emphasis is needed upon the thorough and careful 
preparation and better literary training on the part of teachers of 
reading, as well as upon a more adequate preparation of the daily 
lesson, both by teacher and pupil. The teacher should be able to 
vitalize the subject matter through presenting it dramatically, or in 
story form, as well as through ability to read pleasingly and well. 
The one unpardonable sin in the teaching of reading is the mechan- 
izing of the process. The individuality of the pupil should be given 
full scope always, and all aids, devices, and rules should be subord- 
inated to the goal as indicated above. 

LANGUAGE. 

Education however defined must take into account its two 
phases of impression and expression. There has been a tendency to 
give the emphasis to impression, in many cases, to the almost com- 
plete neglect of expression. Thoughtful educators have long con- 
demned this tendency and we often hear, e. g., "There is no impres- 
sion without expression," or again. "One does not know what he 
cannot tell." Whether or not these last statements are to be accepted 
depends entirely on the meaning given them, but in any case the fact 
is recognized that the expression of a truth newly come into con- 
sciousness, the reproducing or retelling of it, clarifies and deepens 
the impression. And it does not stop with merely making the im- 
pression stronger or deeper. We are told that isolated facts do not 
stay in the mind, that it has no way of holding them, that it is only 
as a new experience or idea is associated with other experiences and 
ideas that the mind secures power to recall it and to use it. It is 
here that the greatest value of expression arises. When, through 
something seen or heard or read, a new fact comes into conscious- 
ness, the search for the proper words or other means to express the 
new calls into play words or acts that have been used to express 
similar or related ideas and this associates the new with those, the 
similar or related ideas. The new idea no longer stands alone ; it is 
now joined to the ideas and experience that preceded it. So expres- 
sion not only deepens the impression made by the new ; it aids the 
mind in grasping the new. in apperceiving it, and making it a live 
part of its fund of knowledge and experience. With all these attri- 
butes and possibilities, expression may well demand large share of 
the educational program. 

It will always be true that language is the most important means 
of expression ; as the work of many schools is conducted today, 
language is practically the only means of expression. Yet in how 
manv schools five to seven periods a day are devoted to gaining 
impressions and only one to a study of means of expression ! In 



36 North Dakota Educational Association 

how many schools that one period is devoted to memorizing rules, 
definitions, memory gems, etc. — to gaining more impressions — with- 
out giving the pupil any considerable opportunity for his own ways 
of expression ! 

If education aimed only at knowledge, it would still remain true 
as we have shown above that expression is an important and almost 
necessary means at gaining a permanent hold or even a present un- 
derstanding of the impressions. But education aims beyond knowl- 
edge, at knowledge plus power, and expression is more important 
still in the development of power. So it has been agreed among 
teachers that, if a child is to gain a permanent and a usable knowl- 
edge of any subject, it must be by continually calling out the expres- 
sion of the knowledge as it is being gained. To this end, the good 
history class, e. g., is not merely a class in memorizing dates, cut 
and dried facts and reproducing these word for word from the book ; 
it is a class in the expression and discussion of historical ideas, a 
class in talking about historical personages and events. Similarly, 
in geography, reading, physiology, civics — in any subject, if we wish 
our pupils to think and think connectedly, to gain ability to seize 
essentials and to organize their ideas of the subject-matter, we must 
train them to talk and talk connectedly, to seek out main points for 
discussion, and to tell their story so that the details fall into relation 
to these main points. 

By common consent, however, teachers have given to training 
in language one period a day in addition to whatever training in 
expression they give in other classes. In the other classes, the em- 
phasis is on the accuracy, completeness, and relation of the facts; 
by common consent it is agreed that there is needed a period daily, 
or almost daily, in which the form of presenting the facts receives 
special study. There are incomplete sentences, ambiguous modifiers, 
errors of speech, to be brought into proper form ; in the geography 
or physiology class, these changes are made through a suggestion or 
question by the teacher; in the language period, practice and drill 
are provided to change the knowledge of correct forms into habits 
of speech. There are forms of written composition, margins, para- 
graphing, punctuation, forms of correspondence to be mastered ; this 
work belongs essentially to the language period. It is believed that 
the memorizing and frequent repetition of good literature, selections 
from the masters of English, will widen the pupil's vocabulary and 
furnish models for his own expression, so memory gems often con- 
stitute a part of the language work. 

It is on this last point that the Committee must take issue with 
the present Course of Study and the present practice in a large pro- 
portion of North Dakota schools. The Course of Study sets forth 
two aims for Language, first, the mastery of literature, and second, 
developing the pupil's power of expression. A careful study of the 
Course, however, shows that, while there is an occasional statement 
of the importance of the art of expression, almost nothing is defi- 



Adjustment of Educational Work 2i7 

nitely provided to develop this art. while almost the whole Course 
is laid out in the aim of mastering literature. In the judgment of 
the Committee this is fundamentally wrong; the mastery of litera- 
ture as such is not the purpose of grade work in language, whatever 
literature appears in the language period gains its place as we have 
shown above merely through the assistance it can give to the pupil's 
power of expression. Some of the Committee would like to say that 
memory gems, important as they are, can not give an equivalent in 
language training for the time they cost, and hence they do not be- 
long in the language period, but are properly a part of the work in 
reading. Whether or not this last be true, the Committee is united 
in maintaining that the purpose of Language is to develop the pupil's 
power to tell in good form and write in good form whatever he 
knows and wishes to tell or write. 

Another characteristic frequently appearing in the Course, and 
questioned by the Committee, is the bringing in of things extraneous 
to the other work of the school for the pupil to reproduce, to talk or 
write about. In ordinary life, we do not study up something, learn 
a story, etc., for the sake of writing or talking about it; why should 
we in school? In life, we talk or write, because we know or have 
learned something we think will be of interest or value to others, 
and we talk or write to convey this knowledge to them. Then in 
school let us do the same ; let us tell or write in the language period 
an interesting story from the reading lesson one day, let us retell and 
better organize the facts of the history or physiology lesson another 
day, and occasionally let us drill on correct forms of oral and written 
speech. Further, should we, as the Course suggests, make this cor- 
relation with only one study for several years, then another for a 
year, and so on. The Committee believes that any body of interest- 
ing knowledge, gained by the class in any other lesson of the day 
may well come over to the language period to be retold with the 
emphasis now on the wording, the form, and the organization, and 
that this kind of work should form a very large part of the language 
work of every grade. 

To many persons, however, language is merely something to 
fill in the place of grammar in those grades where grammar is too 
difficult, as fast as possible to prepare the pupil for grammar, as 
rapidly as possible to introduce the simpler parts of grammar, and 
as soon as possible to give entire place to grammar. The writers of 
our Course of Study repudiate this view, and the Committee thinks 
rightly so. The Course says : "Language is not a diluted form of 
grammar;" and even in the last two grades you should be training 
speakers and writers, and incidentally grammarians." It is to be 
feared though that in a very large proportion of North Dakota 
schools, the aim of seventh and eighth grade instruction is toward 
grammar and often entirely to the exclusion of language training. 
This Committee would recommend as a remedy for this that a course 
in oral and written composition be laid out for these grades drawing 



38 , North Dakota Educational Association 

topics from the other work of the grades, and showing teachers how 
to handle these lessons to develop the pupil's power of expression. 
We would recommend too the elimination of nearly all the subdivis- 
ions of parts of speech, the formal conjugation and functions of the 
tenses beyond the simple time relations of the six indicative mode 
tenses, nearly all of parsing — in fact, we should regard the ability of 
any grammatical data to aid in developing the power of expression 
as the test of its introduction into grade work. 

To state these points in brief, they would run about as follows : 
Expression is as important as impression and the expression of 
an idea is a strong aid to the impression made by it. 

Language is the chief means of expression available in the 
school-room. 

The study of language should aim first, last, and all the time 
toward securing for the pupil this power of expression. 

In the recitation of every subject, much time and effort should 
be devoted to assisting the pupil to tell his facts fully and to improve 
his power to organize them ; the language period should carry still 
farther this practice, in telling, choosing main points, and organizing, 
with the emphasis on form rather than facts. 

Language should be correlated not with one subject a year and 
next year with another, but each day with the subject that offers the 
most suitable material. 

The work of the two upper grades should be at least half de- 
voted to language training, and the grammar taught should be not 
the details of parsing, but the broad principles of sentence structure, 
that will aid the pupil in understanding and using the language. 

GENERAL SUGGESTIONS. 

The reproduction work should be mainly narration or descrip- 
tive exposition; the beautiful (especially what depends on form for 
its beauty) the ethical, the abstract, should generally be left in the 
form in which the author presented it. 

The memory gem should receive attention, not alone in the 
language period, but also in reading. 

Everything, every subject, should contribute all it can to the 
pupils' language training. Even Arithmetic, in completeness and 
accuracy of statement ; in explanation of problems, in form of writ- 
ten work, can help much. 

Distinguish between the things for which the pupils are re- 
sponsible (indicated in the Course of Study) and the supplementary 
matter suggested to the teacher. 

The dictation lesson, read by the teacher and to be written by 
the pupils aims to improve their spelling and punctuation, and to 
call for their best penmanship. It may have other aims ; it may be 
offered in any grade, and ought to be used as early as second grade 
and in all grades thereafter ; it may be taken from a language text 
or spelling text, but it may often be better taken from the reading 
lesson, or from any of the other lessons. 



Adjustment of Editcatioital Work 39 

Everywhere, get the pupil to talk, to talk connectedly, to talk 
logically, and to write in the best form as to margins, paragraphing, 
and punctuation, selection and arrangement of thought, that he is 
capable of at that stage of his progress. 

First Year. 

On the teacher's part, conversations planned on things in the 
school room or yard, the home life, on things seen on the way to 
school or in nature study excursions, and on the games played in 
and out of the school-room. Stories should be read or told to the 
pupils. Good literature should be read to them. 

On the pupils' part, reproductions of the facts gained through 
the above ; later, of the facts gained through his reading lessons. 

The memory gem work should include not only poetry, rhymes, 
and the like, but dramatization as well. 

In number work, insist on full statement, except in drills. 

Written Work — 

Learning to copy words, sentences, etc., from script copy, with 
care to reproduce capitals and periods. 

Putting into script the printed sentences of their reader with 
care as to punctuation. 

Making up and writing sentences in answer to the questions. 

Writing name and P. O. address. 

Second Year. 

Work of preceding year continued with increasing independence 
of teacher's aid. 

Add to the preceding the straightening up of margins, and in- 
denting of paragraphs as he copies, the copying of the forms of 
letters from the blackboard. In the stories reproduced, the advance 
is in the length of the story and in the fullness of detail. The repro- 
duction may be assisted by outlines, topical or question, and in this 
outline, paragraphing should be provided for. In the oral hygiene, 
nature stiidy, etc., pupils should be held to reproduction in full of 
what was worked out the day before. In number work, there should 
be full statement and much oral analysis. 

Pupils now write letters to the teacher, to their parent, etc., but 
helped by headings, outlines, etc., on the board. 

Third Year. 

In oral reproductions, teachers should now insist on ability to 
reproduce details practically completely. 

Conversations continued, and they now throw an increasing 
responsibility on the pupil for thinking and talking. 

Dictation lessons begin to receive emphasis. 

Drills in correct use of pronouns and possibly verbs may begin 
here. 

Social letters receive some time (teacher to see that pupil has 
something to write). 



40 North Dakota Educational Ass ociation 

Fourth Year. 

Pupils now ought to organize the reproductions pretty well as 
they tell them — they ought not to need often to go back to pick up 
essential points. In writing, there should be continued emphasis on 
paragraphing, and order of sentences. The form as to margins and 
indentations should be mastered by this time. 

The physiology class now begin to use a text and each recita- 
tion should be a language lesson as well as a physiology, i. e., each 
physiology recitation should be an exercise for the pupil in talking, 
in thinking on his feet, in organizing the details of what he says. If 
a set of facts are first given in fragmentary shape, part by one, some 
more by another, etc., let one pupil finally re-recite them, putting 
them into a connected recitation. 

Informal social notes, receipting of bills, ordering of goods by 
letter, addressing of envelopes should receive notice. 

Drills in correct use of pronouns and irregular verbs given 
much attention in this and the fifth grade. 

Fifth Year. 

By the end of this year, the irregular verbs most commonly mis- 
used should be pretty well covered. 

The geography recitation should be conducted as is suggested 
for physiology above ; the same holds true of other subjects as they 
are introduced later. 

Compositions, oral and written, continue. The written sum- 
maries should from now on be of help to the other subjects, notably 
history, geography, physiology, and should be used there often, 
sometimes as an extended composition, sometimes in a paragraph, 
sometimes in an outline. 

Pupil should now be writing social letters, informal invitations, 
etc., making out bills, receipting them and writing out receipts in 
good form. 

Sentences should be classified as to use. and the pupil is learning 
to use such words as sentence, subject, predicate, noun, without, 
however, having a formal definition for them. 

Sixth Year. 

In composition from now on, the advance will be not so much 
in form as in organization of thought, in ability to seize the essentials 
and arrange them properly on the one hand, or on the other to ex- 
pand by putting under any general head the details that belong to it. 
The biography in history and the summary or imaginary journey in 
geography will furnish much of this year's material, though here as 
always any good material is to be used, whatever lesson it may be 
from. 

Some paraphrasing may be done, keeping to the author's word- 
ing mainly but changing certain indicated words. 



Adjustment of Educational Work 41 

Social correspondence should now include formal notes of invi- 
tation, acceptance, regrets, etc. Business letters, answers to adver- 
tisements for things "Lost," should receive several lessons. 

Pupil should now receive some practice in condensing phrases 
to words ; clauses to phrases, sentences to clauses. Some work in 
choice of connectives should be carried on from here through the 
eighth grade. 

In grammar the pupil should now know the various parts of 
speech in ordinary constructions, but his use of the names is merely 
as names. 

Seventh Year. 

Composition now to include all the kinds that have been given 
in other year's work and to add the following: 

Reproduction may now call for more independence of the text- 
book and may bring in side topics. In geography or^ history, e. g., 
pupils may be called on to report orally or in writing reference work 
from other texts. In literature, they may be asked to report on the 
geographical or historical setting of the selection, or in the selection 
they may trace the career of a particular personage. 

Pupil should be able to write the checks, drafts, notes, etc., 
called for in arithmetic. 

In this and the next grade pupils should be called on frequently 
to outline a topic from history or geography or the reading lesson; 
and to talk to the class from his outline. 

Grammar. — The analysis of the simple sentence, — subject, 
predicate, complements and modifiers. In this work the names of 
the parts of speech are used as names, without much discussion of 
fine distinctions. 

Eighth Year. 
Composition work adds — 

Exposition of movements and events in history with causes, re- 
sults, etc. 

Character sketches from reading and history, from outlines 
given by teacher. 

Close study of appropriate wording for the various forms of 
correspondence as social notes, letters of application, recommenda- 
tion, introduction, acceptance, and business paper. 
Grammar — 

Analysis of compound and complex sentences and a somewhat 
fuller study of the parts of speech, but both to enter far on their sub- 
divisions. 

SOCIAL STUDY IN THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL. 

(l) HISTORY. 

Social studies should aim primarily at these three things: — 
( I ) sound character through intimate contact with the best men and 



42 North Dakota Educational Association 

women of our own and other times, (2) sympathetic understanding 
of the chief phases of the present social order (especially the indus- 
trial) as seen in the light of past conditions, and (3) such an interest 
in public affairs as will later express itself in patriotic citizenship. 
The first is to be sought chiefly through carefully selected biographi- 
cal stories, the second through cause and effect studies of historic 
events and movements in industry, politics, religion, etc., and the 
third through the two kinds of material just named and the imitation 
in school of elections, trials, councils, legislatures, congresses, etc. 
The richness of American history with respect to all three kinds of 
material should not be forgotten. 

The subject should be so handled as to be essentially a thought 
subject. Great freedom should be permitted and as little attention 
as possible should be given to purely formal things. Reference 
reading should be much limited and carefully directed. The value 
of such reading for young students is easily over-estimated. Differ- 
ent views of the same thing from different authors, amounting 
usually with children to a sea of haziness and obscurity, are not to 
be compared in value to one clear view obtained from a single 
sympathetic author or teacher. 

No text should be used until the children are able to handle it 
with ease and thus save the history from degenerating into mere 
reading. Through the oral story skillfully handled and untrammeled 
by text-books, rich and bounteous subject-matter can be easily taught 
in the lower grades which, because of the inability of children to 
read, could not be taught at all by the use of books. 

FIRST THREE GRADES. 

The fairy stories and myths suggested for these grades are in- 
tended merely to illustrate how thorough them, fanciful and imag- 
inative in a greater or lesser degree as they are, the pupil following 
the order of his own development from the imaginative stage to the 
rational, should be permitted to approach authentic history. They 
should, of course, be classified as literature rather than history. 

First Grade: Oral Stories. — The Ugly Duckling, Little Red 
Riding Hood, The Little Match Girl, Cinderella, Alice in Wonder- 
land, The Pine Tree, The Wind and the Sun, The Four Musicians, 
The Three Bears, The Fox and the Grapes, etc. 

Second Grade: Oral Stories. — The Golden Touch, The Gorg- 
on's Head, The Dragon's Teeth, The Golden Fleece, The Minotaur, 
The Miraculous Pitcher, The Pygmies, The Snow Queen, and simple 
interesting incidents from the lives of great Americans. 

Third Grade: Oral Stories. — The Story of the Illiad, the Ad- 
ventures of Ulysses, The Tales of King Arthur, and simple, inter- 
esting incidents from the lives of great men and women — mainly 
American. 



Adjustment of Educational Work 43 



FOURTH AND FIFTH GRADES. 

Through such stories as are suggested children may acquire an 
elementary knowledge in biographical form of American history by 
the end of the fourth year and of world history by the end of the 
fifth. 

Fourth Grade: Oral stories from American history. — Colum- 
bus, De Soto, John Smith, Joliet and Marquette, Wolfe, Washing- 
ton, Jones, Arnold, Hale, Boone, Lewis and Clark, Crockett, Carson, 
Lincoln, Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Dewey, Fulton,. Whitney, 
Morse, etc. North Dakota stories too. 

Fifth Grade: Oral stories from Old World history. — Confuc- 
ius, Nebuchadnezzar, Jason, Theseus, Hercules, Olympic Games, 
Croesus, Marathon, Alexander, Romulus. Hannibal, Caesar, Nero, 
Attila, Mohammed, Charlemagne, Vasco da Gama, William the Si- 
lent, Gustavus Adolphus, Peter the Great, Michael Angelo, Leon- 
ardo Da Vinci, the French Revolution, Napoleon, Kossuth, etc. 

SIXTH^ SEVENTH AND EIGHTH GRADES. 

With the ability to read easily things that they can understand 
once acquired, children should then study history from a text. A 
brief elementary text in simple language and attractive style and 
dealing with the whole period of American history should be the 
basis of the work in the sixth grade. During this year the text will 
help to put into systematic form all that has been taught through 
stories in the lower grades besides yielding much additional infor- 
mation not necessarily of a biographical nature. In the remaining 
grades a somewhat more advanced text should be used. It should 
go more into detail than the first one and the work should be made 
as intensive and complete as possible. A good deal of the time in 
these grades — especially the eighth — should be spent in reviewing 
the development of important movements. 

(2) OTHER SOCIAL STUDIES. CIVICS. 

I. Need of the study. The recent developments in our country 
have abimdantly shown that much of the abuse which has arisen in 
our political and industrial affairs has taken place because of the one- 
sided and exaggerated individualism which has been fostered in our 
educational and political system. Our psychology has been indi- 
vidualistic and our moral precepts and teaching have been in the 
direction of viewing the individual as a separate agent, alone ac- 
countable f®r his success and without obligation to the community 
which has really produced him. The cure for the bad conditions and 
the establishment of a better order of things must, in large part, 
proceed out of a better knowledge on the part of individuals of their 
place and function in society and of their duty to it. This knowledge 
cannot be given in a year by way of mere precepts bearing on duty 
in the abstract but must arise from a long innoculation through con- 



44 North Dakota Educational Association 

Crete teaching about the social relations of the individual and insti- 
tutions as they are found in action in the community about the youth. 
As in the case of nature study, which begins in early years of the 
school and gives simple lessons about objects in nature and which 
becomes more and more complex in the objects considered or study 
of the objects and processes of nature until at the end of the element- 
ary schools it is found capable of being differentiated into the several 
natural sciences, so there should be a range of social studies which 
begin with the simple things, the persons or functionaries of the 
community, in the early years of the school and takes in larger and 
larger areas of social facts and processes until at the top or end of 
the elementary schools the differentiation into the various social sci- 
ences may proceed. This is both a preparation for the higher work 
which will follow if the individual goes on in his educational career, 
and is a preparation for life in case the pupil is forced to drop off 
along the way. 

2. Relation to and differentiation from the studies of that nature 
now in the school. It is not conceived that this would displace his- 
tory and civics which we now have. It would rather be supplemental 
and foundational for both. History is the study of the past currents 
of life. It unfolds to the mind's eye the great dramas which have 
been enacted in the past ages of human activities. Social study con- 
siders what is taking place in societ}^ now in a functional way. It is 
a cross-section of the present, viewing individuals and institutions 
as organs and factors which have a definite and specific service to 
perform in their interdependent articulations and organic operations 
with the larger social mechanism. It also looks to the future and 
seeks to show the individual and the institution how they may better 
operate for their own good and that of the larger whole. It empha- 
sizes the all around interdependence of men and institutions as based 
on divisions of labor and keeps in the foreground the ideal society, 
the ideal condition of community life, the ideal relationship of the 
man in the service of humanity. Because it does this it is a needed 
foundation for the unraveling and the understanding of the story 
told in history. It is a value study and gives the child standards of 
value to measure the worth of the historical events as they are met. 
It enables history to assume larger significance than it otherwise 
could. 

In like manner it is not civics, though civics may be articulated 
with it as a phase of social study. For illustration, botany is nature 
study but the reverse is not true because the whole is greater than 
its part. Nature study, proper, opens up all sections of concrete 
nature to view. It is the basis of all the sciences, both physical, 
biological, and anthropological. The same is true of social study. 
It gets at all parts and phases of community life, not merely the 
political or governmental. There are five or six fundamental phases 
of social life, or we may call them interests, which are expressed in 
human institutions or organizations, namely, the means or instru- 



Adjustment of Educational Work 45 

ments which men operate through to satisfy these various wants. 
Some of these important segments of society are poHtical, economic, 
religious, esthetic, cultural, and sociability or "social." Civics covers 
that small section included in the political. It gives but a fragment- 
ary view of man in his social relations. Social study would therefore 
supplement this valuable study. 

It would also be a foundation for civics. Civics takes up the 
somewhat specialized study of the functions in society of a section of 
society, as was just said. Social study would first establish the idea 
of a larger entity called society, its interdependent, organic, and co- 
operative nature ; secondly, give the idea of the function or service 
of every person or organization as a part of society ; third, give ideals 
of what society and community life should strive to be, what the 
individual should be and what his attitude should be to make possible 
the realization of progress or betterment. This would serve as a 
most valuable background for the more specialized study of civics. 

(3) TENTETIVE SUGGESTIONS LOOKING TOWx\RD AN OUTLINE 
OF SOCIAL STUDY. 

First Four Years. 

First Year. Genesis of the social consciousness by taking ad- 
vantage of play, play instincts, and play organizations. May be car- 
ried on through several years, especially as the basis of securing 
ideas and decisions relative to social matters. In first year to be 
used especially to give conception of inhibition and control of own 
activities, power and technique of cooperation, idea of service in and 
for the group, securing initiative and leadership. 

Second Year. Study of the home group — father, mother, older 
and younger children, hired help — to get idea of group action di- 
rected toward common welfare, division of labor, of service, inter- 
dependence, cooperation, common good, mutual rights, obligations; 
also group law. judicial decisions of parents, administration of group 
will-germs of all larger political activities ; likewise the culture and 
protective functions in their beginnings. 

Third and fourth years. Carry out the beginnings laid previ- 
ously into the neighborhood. Ask such questions as these about 
such functionaries as the following: 

a. Question: Who has seen a ? Where does he work? 

What does he do? How does he do it? What does he do it with? 
Whom does he do it for? What does he do it for? What does he 
produce for himself ? What are his needs ? How are they satisfied ? 
What do we receive from him? What do we give him? How are 
we helped bv his work? How could we get along without him? 
How would it affect us? 

b. Functionaries : Farmer, teacher, preacher, mail-carrier, 
blacksmith, carpenter, thresher, farm hand, house girl, justice of 
peace, marshall, school officers, road supervisors, etc. 



46 North Dakota Educafi ona! Association 

Grammar Grades. 

The work in the grammar grades differs from that of previous 
years chiefly in the matter of complexity of matter and situation, as 
well as in the spirit and vitalizing power which is to be carried into 
the operation. The ideal is to make society appear to be a live, 
working organism, a dynamic thing, rather than a collection of dis- 
jected members. The child is to secure his qualifications for citizen- 
ship through getting the connections intelligently in mind, in making 
decisions wisely as to what should obtain, in throwing his sympathies 
in the right direction, and seeing the part he may play and the duties 
and privileges which may be his. 

Fifth Grade. 

1. Intensive study of the school, a. Principal. Consider selec- 
tion of teachers and books ; arranging course of study ; programming 
studies ; noting progress of pupils and advancing them in their school 
work ; care of school property ; of individual and school rights ; 
health and safety of pupils ; proper janitor service, etc. ; service to 
the social group. 

b. The teacher. Consider : what she is for ; how she does her 
work ; the preparation she has made ; who benefits by what she does ; 
how she is helped — hindered — in her work ; whose loss when she is 
hindered ; how hindrance may be avoided ; what she has a right to 
expect ; her service to the school group ; to the social group. 

c. The janitor. Consider : What he does ; why he does it ; why 
it is important ; What the result if neglected ; How it may affect us ; 
How he is helped — hindered — in his work ; What should be our atti- 
tude toward him ; Why ; What are his needs ; How are they satisfied ; 
What he exchanges his labor for ; We satisfy his needs for what ; 
What he gains ; what we gain ; What effect his absence would have 
on our work. 

d. The pupil. Consider : What he is here for ; Basis of the 
right ; who makes the privilege possible ; what he gives in return ; 
the benefit to those who pay for it ; Who furnishes him the conditions 
for growth ; what his attitude should be toward property ; why ; 
toward school books ; toward his own books ; why ; how he is helped 
to make wise use of books and materials ; how is the teacher helped 
— hindered — in doing this ; how the pupil is effected when the teacher 
is busied with non-essentials ; what he has a right to expect from 
teachers ; what teachers have a right to expect from him ; what fac- 
tors make a school ; what conditions determine growth. 

2. A study of pioneer conditions in North Dakota to see how 
needs of food, clothing, fuel, government, religious services, educa- 
tion, labor, sociability, etc., were met; and how society got organized. 

Sixth Grade. 

I. Study of a primitive group, as of a Sioux tribe, to get an 
idea of the simpler forms of our fundamental institutions. Tribal 



Adjustment of Educational Work 47 

government, civil and military chiefs, medicine men and religious 
ideas and rites, hunting and agriculture, division of labor between 
men and women, education of the boys, keeping tribal records, sign 
language, implement making, mythology. 
2. Civics of district and township. 

Seventh Grade. 

1. A study of the special problems of the rural community: 
Diversification of crops in relation to the soil, and in view of growing 
population and coming smaller farms ; Grain rasinig for world mar- 
kets ; Home and school sanitation ; Neighborhood cooperation for 
cultural and sociability purposes ; Making farm life more attractive 
to the children ; cooperative agriculture ; benefits of farmers' organi- 
zations. 

2. Civics of county and state. 

Eighth Grade. 

1. Rural problems — continued. The school and farm life; How 
markets are made and controlled ; cooperation with the government ; 
the labor problem on N. Dak. farms ; dependence of farming on 
railroads and its bearing on railway legislation and cooperative ac- 
tion. How to use agricultural and market reports ; schools and 
churches as social centers. 

2. Some industrial history of the U. S. ; especially history of 
agriculture and farmers' organizations in the past century. 

3. Civics in nation. Emphasis on what government should be 
in a democracy, here as previously. 

GEOGRAPHY, NATURE STUDY AND AGRICULTURE. 

The vastness of the natural science of today and the many dis- 
tinct sciences growing out of the study of the forces of nature make 
elementary education in the natural sciences or rather in the elements 
of these sciences both important and difficult. The difficulty is ac- 
centuated by the brief terms in the country schools and by the limited 
time which over half of the children of all schools spend in attend- 
ance upon the schools. 

The problem which confronts the educator is how to give the 
most valuable elements of this constantly increasing natural science 
in the limited time and with the limited means at his command. 

This problem is made more difficult by the increasing demand 
for more civic, religious, physical, industrial and other kinds of cult- 
ure. 

The solution of this problem appears to be the wise selection 
of those fundamental elements of science which will serve to give the 
pupil command of the best range of scientific facts and principles 
which he will need. 

In accordance with this idea we have arranged an outline of 



48 North Dakota Educational Association 

topics which we beHeve will give the pupil this command of the more 
elementary and fundamental facts and principles of the natural 
forces about him. These topics for the first three years are quite 
general, including the basal facts of geography, agriculture, forestry, 
and civics. Beginning with the fourth year the science of geography 
begins to be worked out as a science, and this science of geography 
is completed in the seventh year. From the fourth to the seventh 
year, however, many of the facts employed as types in completing 
the science of geography have been chosen because of their value 
also as elements of a still narrower and more strictly defined science 
such as agriculture and civics. In the eighth year both civics and 
agriculture are studied and the elements which were acquired under 
the study of geography can be gathered together here and systema- 
tized into an exact science, of course, of an elementary nature and 
scope. 

It is hoped that the outlines themselves may be more suggestive 
than any discussion. We beg also to remind the reader that such an 
outline can not claim perfection and at its best can only be a fair 
working approximation which may be perfected by use and wise 
study of the future needs and conditions of the pupils. 

Aims. 

A. General. — Nature is one of the sources from which the child 
gets a rich apperceiving mass which he will use in forming necessary 
ideas in practical life. 

B. Special. — Some of the necessary special ideas which the child 
will need later are ideas of 

1. Color, form, special properties of things. 

2. Relations, such as adaptation, vise, habits, cause and 

effect, etc. 

3. Beauty. 

4. Right and wrong. 

Material. 

A. The Earth— 

1. Soil, and constituents. 

2. Water, and its work. 

3. Atmosphere, its action and work. 

4. Plant life, its conditions and uses. 

5. Animal life, its conditions and uses. 

6. Some of the phenomena and forces of nature. 

7. Some of the mathematical measurements of the earth, its 
movements and forces. 

B. Man— 

1. History. 

2. Habits. 

3. Industry. 



Adjustment of Educational Work 49 

4. Government. 

5. Education. 

6. Religion. 

7. Home life and interests. 

Methods. 

The general method to be employed is the selection of a practical 

and pedagogical type of the fact or principle to be taught and the 

development of this type in such a way as will lead most directly to 

the knowledge, power or skill aimed at in the teaching of the subject. 

Outline. 
First Year. Animal Life — 

1. Cat, dog, horse, cow, fish. Compare with other animals. 

2. Robin, meadow-lark, woodpecker. Compare with other birds. 

3. Butterfly, ant, bee. Compare with other insects. 
Plant Life — 

1. Pansy, Easter lily, pasque flower. 

2. Thistle, dandelion. 
Materials — 

I. Wool, cotton, silk, coal, wood. 
Natural Phenomena — 

I. Wind, water, fire, heat, light. 
Second Year. Animal Life — 

1. Use any topics in this class in first year and also the sheep 
and pig. Develop the idea of food animals. 

2. Gopher, fox, wolf, squirrel. Compare with other wild animals. 

3. Butterflies, beetles, spiders, house fly, and compare. 
Plant Life— 

1. Goldenrod, sweet pea, clover, daisy, sunflower. 

2. Thistle, dandelion, mustard, other weeds. 

3. Seeds — bean, pea, squash, wheat, and conditions required for 
sprouting. 

4. Box elder, elm, maple. 
Materials — 

I. Coal, iron, copper, gold, silver, glass, soil, wood. 
Natural Phenomena — 

1. Wind, water, heat, light, evaporation. 

2. Observation of weather. 
Third Year. Animal Life — 

1. Toad, frog, fish, blackbird, crow, oriole. 

2. Butterflies, beetles, ants, grasshoppers. 

3. Kinds of cattle and their uses. 
Plant Life— 

1. Roots, stems, leaves, parts of flower, and uses of these. 

2. Seeds — wheat, corn, oats, dandelion, thistle, cottonwood, 
beggar's lice. 

3. How seeds are scattered. 
Materials — 



50 North Dakota Educational Association 

1. Coal, charcoal, graphite, clay, slate, rock, soil. 

2. Leather, cloth, kinds of wood, hemp, silk, paper, hay, straw. 
Natural Phenomena — 

1. Wind, air, water, heat, light, evaporation, dew, frost, mist, 
clouds, rain. 

2. Observation of the weather. 
Fourth Year. A. Local Geography — 

1. The school room, shape, size, draw to scale and locate seats. 

2. School grounds, shape, size, draw to scale. 

3. The city or town, draw principal streets or roads and locate 
places of interest. 

4. Locate on the city or town map the interesting places in the 
vicinity, such as rivers, lakes, etc. 

5. Locate railroads, roads of community. 

B. The County. 

1. Discuss and locate interesting places. 

2. Make a map. 

3. Locate roads and railroads, forests, lakes, etc. 

4. Learn the nature of the soil and what crops are raised. 

C. Physical Geography — 

1. Soil, brooks, valleys, hills, mountains, rivers, lakes, oceans, 
continents. 

Separate the soil by shaking in bottle with water. Observe clay, 
gravel, silt, and humus. Learn how each was formed. 

2. Air, winds, weather-vane, directions. 

3. Temperature, the thermometer. 

D. Mathematical Geography — 

1. The directions, shape of earth. 

2. Apparent movements of sun, zones. 

E. Animal Life — 

1. Butterflies, beetles, other insects. 

2. Some birds, birds that especially help the farmer, game birds, 
plumage birds. 

3. Kinds of cattle and use of each, kinds of horses and uses, 
kinds of pigs and uses. 

F. Plant Life— 

1. Wheat, corn, oats, grass, — conditions under which they grow 
best, properties of soil each requires, cultivation, etc. 

2. Pollination of flowers, how pollen is carried, use of color, 
nectar, scent, etc. 

3. Distribution of seeds. 

4. Weeds, how to get rid of each. 

5. Trees, elm, willow, oak, ash, poplar, forests, location of for- 
ests of the country, uses, conditions under which they can be culti- 
vated. Learn what conditions are required for the best growth of 
each kind of tree. 

C. Materials— 

I. Carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen. 



Adjustment of Educational Wor k 51 

2. Rocks and the formation of soil. 

3. Coal, iron, gold, silver, copper, tin, aluminum, salt, petroleum, 
natural gas. 

H. The Earth as a Whole — 

Shape, size, movements, oceans, continents, countries, races, 
peoples of the world. 
Fifth Year. A. North Dakota — 

1. Rivers — Special study of the Red and Missouri as types. The 
chief tributaries of these two rivers in North Dakota. 

2. Surface. — Teacher can find valuable help in Prof. Willard's 
Story of the Prairie. Also in government maps, charts, etc. 

3. Soil. — Review fourth year outline and enlarge upon, constitu- 
ents, moisture and air in soil, fertilizing, and cultivation with refer- 
ence to retaining fertility, mositure, air. Learn what constituents 
each crop takes out, and the best way to restore it. 

4. Climate, and causes determining our temperature and pre- 
cipitation, winds, etc. 

5. Forests. — Forests of the state, their nature, uses, values, how 
to protect and increase them. 

6. The People — 

a. Brief history of settlement and growth. 

b. Industry. 

1. Study as types the raising of wheat, and other small 
grains, corn, and stock raising. 

2. Milling and elevators. 

3. Lignite mining. 

4. Transportation. 

c. Schools. 

d. Government, briefly. 

B. North America — 

1. Mountains and rivers. 

2. Size, shape, map. 

3. Climate, and causes determining. 

C. The United States — 

1. Brief history of settlement and growth. 

2. Boundaries and map. 

3. Take the most important groups of states and study. 

a. Location. 

b. Rivers and surface. 

c. Industries, working out the cause determining and lim- 
iting. 

D. Physical — 

1. The formation of the soil of the United States. 

2. The work of glacial drift. 

3. Action of rivers and ocean currents. 

E. Mathematical — 

1. Seasons and zones. 

2. The movements of the earth. 



52 North Dakota Educational Association 



F. The World as a Whole— 

1, Review size, shape, movements, oceans, continents, and races 
of men. 

2. Countries of the world. Something of customs, industries, 
government, schools, and religions. 

Sixth Year. A. North America — 

1. Continent formation, upheaval, vulcanism, glacial action, 
erosion, and transportation. 

2. Surface, rivers, mountains, etc. 

3. Plants and animals. 

4. People as to race, nationality, habits of industry. 

5. Latitude and longitude. 

B. United States — 

I. As a Whole. 

1. Physical features. 

2. Climate. 

3. Plants and animals, emphasizing the forests and their 
uses and the way to use and preserve them. 

4. The people as to nationality and previous habits of in- 
dustry. 

II. By groups of states. 

1. Physical features. 

2. Resources. 

3. Industries, choosing the types through which you may 
best get at the conditions and life of the people. 

Make a specialty of the various forms of agriculture. 
Under types of industry in the group to which North Da- 
kota belongs treat agriculture under these topics : 

( 1 ) Soil, physical composition, chemical composition, 
what each crop takes out, how to restore this, best methods 
of cultivating in order to retain moisture and air in soil. 

(2) Enemies of each crop and how to get rid of them. 
The teacher will find aid in Goff and Mayne's Ele. Agri- 
culture, Shepard and McDowell's, etc. 

4. Government. 

5. Education. 

6. Habits. 

7. Religion. 

C. Other Countries of North America. — Treat in the same way as 

United States, but more briefly and compare constantly with the 
United States. 

D. Physical — 

I. Teach at the right time in connection with topics above. 

a. Continent formation. 

b. Winds and climate. 

c. Ocean currents. 

E. Mathematical — 

I. The seasons. 



Adjustment of Educational Work 53 

2. The earth as a planet. 

3. Movements of the earth. 
Seventh Grade — 

1. South American. 

2. Europe. 

3. Asia. 

4. Africa. 

5. Austraha. 

6. Important Island Possessions. 

Treat all the above in the same manner as is outlined for a study 
of North America, but not so intensively and always comparing with 
North America and the United States, and where suitable, with the 
state of North Dakota. 

MANUAL TRAINING, DOMESTIC SCIENCE, DOMESTIC 
ART, AGRICULTURE. 

In planning a course of instruction in Manual Training, Do- 
mestic Science and Art and Agriculture for the public schools the 
following principles are basic : 

(i) Industry conditions life. For this reason, if no other, it is 
fundamental in the education of the young. 

(2) Industry conditions society, its arts and institutions. It is 
the sub-structure that makes society possible. For this reason it is 
fundamental in the education of the young. 

(3) Man's first duty to society is to be self-supporting; there- 
fore the first office of education is to enable the pupil to support him- 
self. 

(4) The child should be given an opportunity to observe and 
participate in the industrial processes that form the sub-structure of 
our social life. Where this is not done the quality of life must suffer. 

(5) Individual industrial experience is as necessary a condition 
for the normal development of the child as racial industrial experi- 
ence has been for the progress of social life. 

(6) The home cannot furnish this industrial experience; the 
school must do it. 

(7) Since the school course is already overburdened industry 
must become the means through which other subjects are acquired. 
Through industry the child and the symbols of education (book 
learning) are to be brought into vital relationship. Industry is thus 
the "articulating center" of school life. 

(8) No school system making any claim to completeness can 
consistently ignore the claims of industry as an integral part of the 
curriculum. 

(9) The manual and domestic arts and agriculture, being primal 
community necessities, are the means through which the school must 
relate itself to active community life. 



54 North Dakota Educational Association 

I. TYPES OF SCHOOLS. 

The public school system of North Dakota, as at present organ- 
ized and administered, includes the following types : 
(i) The one-room rural district school. 

(2) The consolidated rural school. 

(3) The village school. 

(4) The city school. 

II. SUGGESTIVE COURSES. 

( I ) One Room Rural School. 

Where rural school buildings are of the type prevalent in North 
Dakota, and where the teaching force is untrained and migratory, 
little in the form of industrial training can be accomplished. With 
inadequate facilities and untrained teachers failure is practically 
certain. The fact that instruction in the elements of Agriculture in 
rural schools has so often resulted in failure has led numerous teach- 
ers and school boards to abandon the field without an effort. Such 
failures have been due to untrained teachers. What has been true 
of Agriculture will hold true in equal measure of Manual Training 
and Domestic Science and Art. Where the teacher is properly 
trained and enthusiastic and conditions favorable a limited amount 
of industrial work may be confidently undertaken. 

(A) Elementary Agriculture: Such a course should include the 

study of: 
(i) The Soil: Modes of cultivation; fertiUzation ; drainage; 
effects of crop rotation ; adaptation of different soils to various pro- 
ducts ; methods of restoring worn-out soils, etc., etc. 

(2) Plant Life: Varieties of cultivated plants; selection and 
care of seed ; climate ; modes of growth ; propagation ; tillage ; har- 
vesting, etc. 

(3) Animal Life: Types of domestic animals; breeds and 
breeding ; best varieties for certain purposes ; feeding ; judging ; care ; 
preparation for market ; diseases ; their detection, prevention and 
cure; animal pests, etc. 

(4) Economics of Agriculture: Methods of administering the 
affairs of the farm ; accounting ; the relation of farming to local and 
general industries, etc. 

(B) Manual Training: 

The use of wood, iron, leather and paint, in making and mend- 
ing. 

(C) Domestic Science and Art: 

Kind and quality of fabrics ; adaptation ; instruction and practice 
in plain hand sewing and dressmaking. Food values ; selection and 
preservation of foods ; methods in plain, fancy and invalid cooking ; 
serving equipment and care of kitchen, dining room, etc. ; the house 



Adjustment of Educational Work 55 

site ; house furnishings and their care ; house sanitation ; laundry 
work; marketing; household accounts, etc. 

Model Rural School Buildings. 

Where the facilities are adequate and the teacher properly 
trained, two of the above courses are entirely possible for the rural 
schools. Facilities for carrying on the work are imperative. Addi- 
tional land, to serve as a garden and demonstration laboratory, is a 
necessity. An additional room for a workshop is required. This 
may be built as an addition to the existing school-house at small cost. 
See Cornell Rural School House, pub. bv Cornell Universitv, Ithaca, 
N. Y. 

(2) Consolidated Rural School. 

In the consolidated rural school having four or more teachers, 
one of whom is prepared to teach manual training and agriculture 
and another domestic science and art. the field of industrial educa- 
tion may be greatly extended and far better results obtained than in 
the one-room rural school. This is possible because of a better grade 
of teaching ability, a stronger school spirit and proper facilities for 
carrying forward the work. Here the school plant should include a 
special room for manual training and domestic science and art and 
sufficient land to aflford practical instruction in farm management, 
fertilization of soil, rotation of crops, growth of vegetables, small 
fruit, fruit trees, etc. Where such conditions prevail, and where the 
principal is provided with a home adjacent to the school plant, in- 
struction may be provided under almost ideal conditions. 

In the well-developed consolidated school, equipped as above, 
the industrial instruction may well take the following form : 

Grades I to IV — 

(A) Agriculture and Nature Study: 
Neighborhood bird, plant and animal life. 
Window and home gardens. 

Life history of a few attractive flowers and trees. 
Weather records. 

(B) Manual Training: 

(i) Materials: Raffia, grasses, straw, paper, corn-husks, yarn, 
cardboard, etc. 

(2) Processes: Clay modeling, weaving, braiding, sewing and 
making. 

(3) Projects: A graduated series bearing an intimate relation 
to the child's interests, his home and school Hfe ; such articles as he 
can and wants to use. 

Grade V — 
(A) Agriculture and Nature Study: 
Birds ; their economic value. 
Insects and animals helpful to gardens. 



56 North Dakota Educational Association 

Insects and animals harmful to gardens. 
House insects. 

Weeds in relation to garden. 
Dissemination of seeds. 

Experimental work as to the effects of heat, light, moisture, soil 
and air upon the germination of seeds and the growth of plants. 

(B) Manual Training: 

(i) Materials: Cardboard, basswood, etc. 

(2) Projects: See under "Grades I to IV" above. 

(3) The Working Drawing, showing the different steps in the 
construction of the object, should be marked out before the pupil is 
permitted to begin the construction. 

(C) Domestic Science and Art: 

( 1 ) Materials: Raffia, rattan, canvas, cloth, etc. 

(2) Projects: Weaving, braiding, sewing and darning and 
these processes applied. 

Grade VI — 

(A) Agriculture and Nature Study: 
Work of the previous year continued. 
Insects in relation to agriculture. 

(B) Manual Training: 

(i) Materials: Wood. 

(2) Projects: Elementary woodwork. 

(3) Drawing. 

(C) Domestic Science and Art: 
(i) Elementary sewing. 
(2) Elementary cooking. 
Grade VII— 

(A) Agriculture and Nature Study: 
Elementary text and practical work. 

(B) Manual Training: 

(i) Elementary woodworking. 

(2) Elementary metal-working. 

(3) Drawing. 

(C) Domestic Science and Art: 

( 1 ) Elementary sewing. 

(2) Elementary cooking. 

Grade VIII— 

(A) Agriculture and Nature Study: 
Text and practical work. 

(B) Manual Training: \ 
(i) Elementary woodworking. 

(2) Elementary metal- working. 

(3) Drawing. 

(C) Domestic Science and Art: 
(i) Sewing. 

(2) Cooking. i 



Adjustment of Educational Work 57 

Grade IX — 

(A) Agriculture and Nature Study: 
Agricultural Botany — half year. 

(B) Manual Training: 
Carpentry, 

(C) Domestic Science and Art: 
Sewing, 

Cooking, 
Grade X — 

(A) Agriculture and Nature Study: 
Stock judging, seeds, etc, ; half year, 

(B) Manual Training: 
Forging, 

(C) Domestic Science and Art: 
Sewing, 

Cooking. 

(3) Village School. 

The course of study in the village schools follows the traditional 
lines found in the city schools. Its courses should be so modified as 
to provide for instruction in the elements of agriculture, manual 
training and domestic science and art. The industrial courses may 
well follow the general lines laid down for consolidated rural schools, 
being modified and amended to meet local conditions. The success 
of such courses will depend upon trained teachers being employed. 

(4) City School Systems. 

By city school systems is meant those that are so large that at 
least one person is chosen to recommend teachers, to organize, aid 
and direct their work and to supervise the instruction, 

(i) The course in nature study should begin in the primary 
grades and extend upward through the eight grades merging into 
elementary agriculture in the grammar grade and high school, 

(2) The course in manual training should begin in the primary 
grades and should extend through all the grades in a series of care- 
fully graded lessons. In general terms this course should compre- 
hend the following lines of instruction : 
(i) Grades I to VIII inclusive: 

Clay modeling. 

Paper and cardboard construction. 

Weaving, 

Drawing, 

Sewing, 

Cooking, 

Bent Iron Work, 

Knife Work, 

Sheet Metal Work. 

Bench Work in Wood. 



58 North Dakota Educational Association 

(2) Grades IX to XII inclusive: 

(a) For Boys: 

Joinery. 

Wood Turning and Pattern Making. 

Molding. 

Forging. 

Machine Shop Practice. 

Mechanical Drawing. 

(b) For Girls: 

Sewing. 

Cooking. 

Dressmaking. 

Marketing. 

Serving Meals. 

Home Sanitation and Economics. 

III. TEACHERS AND SUPERINTENDENTS. 

As the teacher is the most important factor in a school no dis- 
cussion of the readjustment of education can leave out of account 
the necessary adjustment of the teaching staff upon which the for- 
mer must be conditioned. Herewith are presented some very brief 
considerations pertaining to this part of the problem. 

PREPARATION OF TEACHERS FOR THE ELEMENT- 
ARY SCHOOLS. 

Every state educational institution in North Dakota is either 
wholly or partly engaged in the preparation of teachers for the ele- 
mentary schools. Private schools are, also, so occupied. And yet 
with all this effort and with many teachers coming from other states 
we are still in need of more and better trained teachers for both 
graded and ungraded schools. As long as the demand for such 
teachers is greater than even all of these sources can meet, it hardly 
seems wise to deprive any institution, having even meager facilities 
for the work, of the privilege of training them. The training of 
teachers for its elementary schools is probably the greatest and the 
most important work that any state can do and no state, especially 
North Dakota with her demand so much greater than her supply, 
should be too quick to restrict the effort of any institution in this 
direction. 

But it is nevertheless true that as the educational system of a 
state develops there ought to be a rational and economic division of 
the task of training teachers for the public schools, in order that 
different institutions may not unwisely duplicate and rival each other 
and that the training of no class of teachers may be slighted. When 
we come in North Dakota to such a division, the training of teachers 
for the elementary schools will be restricted to the state normal 



Adjustment of Educational Wor k 59 

schools (and to county normal schools, if they appear here as they 
have in some other states) and the state educational institutions do- 
ing work of a collegiate grade will be held to the preparation of 
teachers for the secondary schools. 

The state normal schools should be equipped as soon as possible 
to take the same conspicuous part in training elementary school 
teachers in manual training, domestic science, and agriculture that 
they have always taken in training such teachers in the traditional 
elementary subjects. It is imperative that the normal schools be so 
equipped. The solution of the problem of improving the conditions 
of country and village life is more properly to be expected of the 
normal schools than any other institutions because of the peculiar 
position that they occupy with respect to all elementary schools. 

An arrangement at least temporary, should be made by which 
elementary pedagogy, together with observation and practice-teach- 
ing in the lower grades, would be offered as electives in our high 
schools. The arrangement should permit the issuance to high school 
graduates who do this work of second-grade certificates entitling 
them to teach in rural schools for a limited time. This would tend 
to increase rather than decrease attendance at the normal schools 
and it would certainly increase both the number and the quality of 
rural school teachers. The second-grade certificate good for only a 
limited time should be the highest form of license given under this 
arrangement. Students desiring licenses of a higher grade should 
be expected to extend their preparation in more advanced institutions 
— in normal schools, if they are to remain elementary teachers ; in 
colleges, if they are to become secondary teachers. If county normal 
schools are ever established they should be organized under the di- 
rection and supervision of the state normal schools. 

The state normal schools as now organized are much more use- 
ful to the graded than to the ungraded elementary schools. These 
institutions ought to include as a part of their training departments 
a model rural school in connection with which students preparing to 
teach in rural schools might receive more helpful training than the 
normal schools now give. 

THE IMPROVEMENT OF TEACHERS ALREADY 
IN SERVICE. 

The agencies that may be utilized for the improvement and pro- 
fessional advancement of teachers already in the service include 
State Institutions of Higher Learning, High Schools, Summer 
Schools, Institutes, Supervision, Teachers' Meetings, and Reading 
Circles. 

State Institutions of Higher Learning: The State University, 
the Agricultural College, the Normal Schools, and the State Normal 
and Industrial School should make provision for instruction in all 
public school subjects including nature study, agriculture, manual 



6o North Dakota Educational Association 

training, and domestic science and art. so that, while on leave or 
during vacations, teachers may find in these institutions opportunities 
for improvement. 

High Schools : These schools should broaden their curriculum 
so as to include a fair proportion of the industrial subjects and a 
limited amount of elementary pedagogical work. This would be a 
good thing not only for high school students preparing to teach but 
for some teachers already in service who might drop teaching for a 
short time occasionally to advance themselves professionally in the 
high schools. 

Summer Schools : The six weeks summer terms at the various 
state institutions should be continued and the courses in nature study, 
agriculture, and mechanic and domestic arts should be given more 
emphasis. A few others might be opened in the more remote parts 
of the state at points that are convenient of access and have ample 
room, equipment, and other facilities. 

Institutes : They are useful but could be greatly improved if 
the instruction in them were everywhere of superior quality. The 
state department should be given means with which to employ expert 
talent to conduct institutes throughout the state. Institutes are in- 
spirational in character and too limited in point of time to admit of 
much training. 

Supervision : The value of efficient supervision as an agency 
for the improvement of teachers is not yet realized in our state at 
large. The supervisor should be the teachers' teacher. To fulfill 
this requirement two things are necessary : ( i ) He must have ex- 
pert qualifications; and (2) it must be physically possible for him to 
visit schools at reasonable intervals, i. e., their number must not ex- 
ceed fifty for one supervisor. Money for the improvement of teach- 
ers already in the service could not be spent to better advantage than 
by providing more effective supervision. 

Teachers' Meetings : These could be greatly improved by giv- 
ing the places on programs to persons who have something to say. 
In towns more use should be made of the grade meeting. In the 
country less attention should be given to central county meetings, 
and more to local meetings held at different times and in different 
places. 

Reading Circles : These should be encouraged. More reading, 
selected only for its pedagogical value should be required. At least 
one book of each year's series should be chosen with reference to its 
help in the newer educational fields. 

Recommendation : In all preparation of teachers, wherever and 
by whatever agencies it may be carried on, due account should be 
taken of the urgent modern demand for industrial education. The 
teachers' certificate law should be so adjusted to the needs of the 
times as to give proper recognition to natvire study, agriculture, 
manual training and domestic science, and thus encourage teachers 
to qualify themselves in these lines. But at present very few are thus 



Adjustment of Educational Work 6i 

prepared, and any law making mandatory the teaching of these sub- 
jects in the pubhc schools at the present time would result in failure 
and serve to retard industrial education. Constructive effort should 
be directed towards supplying such agencies as will popularize these 
subjects, and will, at the same time, promote instruction therein in 
the rural schools. To this end your committee recommends the en- 
actment of a law establishing not less than three agricultural or 
industrial high schools such as are found in Michigan, Wisconsin, 
or Minnesota. 

SUPERVISION. 

To investigate and report the number of hours city superintend- 
ents have to teach in high schools of the various classes, how much 
time they get for supervision, how various ones use this time to the 
advantage of their respective schools ; how many visits rural schools 
each receive from the county superintendent, what ratio of increase 
results from the use of one or more field deputies, what are the 
principal ways in which a supervisor can be of help to rural schools, 
— would have been an interesting task and would, we believe, furnish 
us some helpful summaries, at the same time that it would give each 
of us many valuable hints from the experience of our fellow work- 
ers. Lack of time forbade our entering on this field but we feel we 
ought not to close this report without calling attention to the im- 
portance of this part of our system, and to some of its problems and 
needs. 

Boards of education hire a good high school teacher at $600 to 
$700 a year; they hire a superintendent of schools at $1,200 to $1,600 
a year and then in the smaller towns frequently give him so much 
teaching to do that they practically make a high school teacher out 
of him — force a $1,200 to $1,600 man to do mostly $700 work. And 
the evil is worse in its influence than in its necessary effect. With 
four-fifths of the superintendent's time necessarily spent on his high 
school, and nearly all his immediate and definite tasks there, the 
tendency is for him to overlook and forget the more general and less 
immediate duties of supervision of the grades. Teachers often com- 
plain of the infrequency of their superintendent's visits ; that he 
seldom or never offers them any real help in their teaching ; that he 
has seemingly little interest in the grades of his school. We know 
that in State Associations the city superintendents as a rule devote 
practically all their time to the problems of the high school, while 
the elementary section which represents eight grades and 85% of 
their pupils and which should be the strongest section of the asso- 
ciation, is largely left to shift for itself. That this is not so much 
the fault of the individuals as of the conditions with which they are 
surrounded, this committee is convinced ; the city superintendents 
of North Dakota are a body of men of whom their fellow-workers 
and the state at large are and ought to be proud. But where all 
one's time is taken in high school teaching and preparing lessons for 



62 North Dakota Educational Association 

teaching, supervision is impossible ; and where a superintendent, him- 
self trained best for the higher work, is surrounded most of the time 
by high school work, the tendency is almost unavoidable for his 
thought and interest to be there to a too great exclusion of the prob- 
lems of his grades. Consequently, to the end that Superintendents 
be more free to devote time to their duties of supervision — the work 
they are really hired and paid to do — we recommend to boards of 
education a considerable reduction of the number of recitations the 
superintendents are now generally called upon to teach. 

It needs little investigation to show that in rural schools, the 
conditions as to supervision are truly deplorable. The committee 
has not available any statistics for the past three years, but in the 
year 1904- 1905, the county superintendents made 4,347 visits divided 
among 3,487 schools, — one a year to each school, with 860 visits for 
emergency visits and rare second or third visits. In 1905- 1906, 3,804 
schools received 4,546 visits — one each and 742 for emergency visits, 
etc. It goes without saying that, valuable as that one visit generally 
is, one visit a year does not afford much real supervision. When we 
find that in some cases superintendents having 50 to 100 schools 
made in two years less than one visit to each school each year, we 
cannot but feel that an explanation is due from those superintend- 
ents. When we find on the other hand that several superintendents 
made from 150 to 275 visits yearly and still could get to each school 
an average i54 visits each 3^ear, we must condemn the system that 
renders ineffective so much work. It was the impossibility for any 
one to supervise effectively 150 to 220 schools scattered over 600 to 
2,000 square miles, that led the last legislature to give a field deputy 
to the superintendent of 150 or more schools. This committee wishes 
to commend this action as a step in the right direction. When we 
think that in city supervision, it is common for a board of education 
to employ their superintendents' whole time for supervision, as soon 
as their school passes to 25 or 30 departments, and how much more 
time is needed for the same number of rural schools, we feel that 
further steps should be taken in this direction than have been taken, 
— that as recommended by Supt. Stockwell, there should be a super- 
vising officer for every not to exceed fifty schools. 



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